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Title: The Grand Babylon Hôtel

Author: Arnold Bennett

Release date: September 1, 2001 [eBook #2813]
Most recently updated: February 26, 2021

Language: English

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

Credits: Produced by David Reed, and David Widger

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

THE GRAND BABYLON HÔTEL

By Arnold Bennett

T. Racksole & Daughter

CONTENTS

Chapter One. THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE WAITER

Chapter Two. HOW MR RACKSOLE OBTAINED HIS
DINNER

Chapter Three. AT THREE A.M.

Chapter Four. ENTRANCE OF THE PRINCE

Chapter Five. WHAT OCCURRED TO REGINALD
DIMMOCK

Chapter Six. IN THE GOLD ROOM

Chapter Seven. NELLA AND THE PRINCE

Chapter Eight. ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF THE
BARONESS

Chapter Nine. TWO WOMEN AND THE REVOLVER

Chapter Ten. AT SEA

Chapter Eleven. THE COURT PAWNBROKER

Chapter Twelve. ROCCO AND ROOM NO. 111

Chapter Thirteen. IN THE STATE BEDROOM

Chapter Fourteen. ROCCO ANSWERS SOME
QUESTIONS

Chapter Fifteen. END OF THE YACHT ADVENTURE

Chapter Sixteen. THE WOMAN WITH THE RED HAT

Chapter Seventeen. THE RELEASE OF PRINCE EUGEN

Chapter Eighteen. IN THE NIGHT-TIME

Chapter Nineteen. ROYALTY AT THE GRAND BABYLON

Chapter Twenty. MR SAMPSON LEVI BIDS PRINCE
EUGEN GOOD MORNING

Chapter Twenty-One. THE RETURN OF FÉLIX BABYLON

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

Chapter Twenty-Three. FURTHER EVENTS IN THE
CELLAR

Chapter Twenty-Four. THE BOTTLE OF WINE

Chapter Twenty-Five. THE STEAM LAUNCH

Chapter Twenty-Six. THE NIGHT CHASE AND THE
MUDLARK

Chapter Twenty-Seven. THE CONFESSION OF MR TOM
JACKSON

Chapter Twenty-Eight. THE STATE BEDROOM ONCE
MORE

Chapter Twenty-Nine. THEODORE IS CALLED TO THE
RESCUE

Chapter Thirty. CONCLUSION

Chapter One THE MILLIONAIRE AND THE
WAITER
‘YES, sir?’
Jules, the celebrated head waiter of the Grand Babylon, was bending
formally towards the alert, middle-aged man who had just entered the
smoking-room and dropped into a basket-chair in the corner by the
conservatory. It was 7.45 on a particularly sultry June night, and dinner was
about to be served at the Grand Babylon. Men of all sizes, ages, and
nationalities, but every one alike arrayed in faultless evening dress, were
dotted about the large, dim apartment. A faint odour of flowers came from
the conservatory, and the tinkle of a fountain. The waiters, commanded by
Jules, moved softly across the thick Oriental rugs, balancing their trays with
the dexterity of jugglers, and receiving and executing orders with that air of
profound importance of which only really first-class waiters have the secret.
The atmosphere was an atmosphere of serenity and repose, characteristic of
the Grand Babylon. It seemed impossible that anything could occur to mar
the peaceful, aristocratic monotony of existence in that perfectly-managed
establishment. Yet on that night was to happen the mightiest upheaval that
the Grand Babylon had ever known.
‘Yes, sir?’ repeated Jules, and this time there was a shade of august
disapproval in his voice: it was not usual for him to have to address a
customer twice.
‘Oh!’ said the alert, middle-aged man, looking up at length. Beautifully
ignorant of the identity of the great Jules, he allowed his grey eyes to
twinkle as he caught sight of the expression on the waiter’s face. ‘Bring me
an Angel Kiss.’
‘Pardon, sir?’
‘Bring me an Angel Kiss, and be good enough to lose no time.’
‘If it’s an American drink, I fear we don’t keep it, sir.’ The voice of Jules
fell icily distinct, and several men glanced round uneasily, as if to deprecate
the slightest disturbance of their calm. The appearance of the person to
whom Jules was speaking, however, reassured them somewhat, for he had

all the look of that expert, the travelled Englishman, who can differentiate
between one hotel and another by instinct, and who knows at once where he
may make a fuss with propriety, and where it is advisable to behave exactly
as at the club. The Grand Babylon was a hotel in whose smoking-room one
behaved as though one was at one’s club.
‘I didn’t suppose you did keep it, but you can mix it, I guess, even in this
hotel.’
‘This isn’t an American hotel, sir.’ The calculated insolence of the words
was cleverly masked beneath an accent of humble submission.
The alert, middle-aged man sat up straight, and gazed placidly at Jules,
who was pulling his famous red side-whiskers.
‘Get a liqueur glass,’ he said, half curtly and half with good-humoured
tolerance, ‘pour into it equal quantities of maraschino, cream, and crême de
menthe. Don’t stir it; don’t shake it. Bring it to me. And, I say, tell the bar-
tender—’
‘Bar-tender, sir?’
‘Tell the bar-tender to make a note of the recipe, as I shall probably want
an Angel Kiss every evening before dinner so long as this weather lasts.’
‘I will send the drink to you, sir,’ said Jules distantly. That was his parting
shot, by which he indicated that he was not as other waiters are, and that
any person who treated him with disrespect did so at his own peril.
A few minutes later, while the alert, middle-aged man was tasting the
Angel Kiss, Jules sat in conclave with Miss Spencer, who had charge of the
bureau of the Grand Babylon. This bureau was a fairly large chamber, with
two sliding glass partitions which overlooked the entrance-hall and the
smoking-room. Only a small portion of the clerical work of the great hotel
was performed there. The place served chiefly as the lair of Miss Spencer,
who was as well known and as important as Jules himself. Most modern
hotels have a male clerk to superintend the bureau. But the Grand Babylon
went its own way. Miss Spencer had been bureau clerk almost since the
Grand Babylon had first raised its massive chimneys to heaven, and she
remained in her place despite the vagaries of other hotels. Always
admirably dressed in plain black silk, with a small diamond brooch,
immaculate wrist-bands, and frizzed yellow hair, she looked now just as she
had looked an indefinite number of years ago. Her age—none knew it, save

herself and perhaps one other, and none cared. The gracious and alluring
contours of her figure were irreproachable; and in the evenings she was a
useful ornament of which any hotel might be innocently proud. Her
knowledge of Bradshaw, of steamship services, and the programmes of
theatres and music-halls was unrivalled; yet she never travelled, she never
went to a theatre or a music-hall. She seemed to spend the whole of her life
in that official lair of hers, imparting information to guests, telephoning to
the various departments, or engaged in intimate conversations with her
special friends on the staff, as at present.
‘Who’s Number 107?’ Jules asked this black-robed lady.
Miss Spencer examined her ledgers.
‘Mr Theodore Racksole, New York.’
‘I thought he must be a New Yorker,’ said Jules, after a brief, significant
pause, ‘but he talks as good English as you or me. Says he wants an “Angel
Kiss”—maraschino and cream, if you please—every night. I’ll see he
doesn’t stop here too long.’
Miss Spencer smiled grimly in response. The notion of referring to
Theodore Racksole as a ‘New Yorker’ appealed to her sense of humour, a
sense in which she was not entirely deficient. She knew, of course, and she
knew that Jules knew, that this Theodore Racksole must be the unique and
only Theodore Racksole, the third richest man in the United States, and
therefore probably in the world. Nevertheless she ranged herself at once on
the side of Jules.
Just as there was only one Racksole, so there was only one Jules, and
Miss Spencer instinctively shared the latter’s indignation at the spectacle of
any person whatsoever, millionaire or Emperor, presuming to demand an
‘Angel Kiss’, that unrespectable concoction of maraschino and cream,
within the precincts of the Grand Babylon. In the world of hotels it was
currently stated that, next to the proprietor, there were three gods at the
Grand Babylon—Jules, the head waiter, Miss Spencer, and, most powerful
of all, Rocco, the renowned chef, who earned two thousand a year, and had
a chalet on the Lake of Lucerne. All the great hotels in Northumberland
Avenue and on the Thames Embankment had tried to get Rocco away from
the Grand Babylon, but without success. Rocco was well aware that even he
could rise no higher than the maître d’hotel of the Grand Babylon, which,
though it never advertised itself, and didn’t belong to a limited company,

stood an easy first among the hotels of Europe—first in expensiveness, first
in exclusiveness, first in that mysterious quality known as ‘style’.
Situated on the Embankment, the Grand Babylon, despite its noble
proportions, was somewhat dwarfed by several colossal neighbours. It had
but three hundred and fifty rooms, whereas there are two hotels within a
quarter of a mile with six hundred and four hundred rooms respectively. On
the other hand, the Grand Babylon was the only hotel in London with a
genuine separate entrance for Royal visitors constantly in use. The Grand
Babylon counted that day wasted on which it did not entertain, at the
lowest, a German prince or the Maharajah of some Indian State. When Felix
Babylon—after whom, and not with any reference to London’s nickname,
the hotel was christened—when Felix Babylon founded the hotel in 1869 he
had set himself to cater for Royalty, and that was the secret of his
triumphant eminence.
The son of a rich Swiss hotel proprietor and financier, he had contrived to
established a connection with the officials of several European Courts, and
he had not spared money in that respect. Sundry kings and not a few
princesses called him Felix, and spoke familiarly of the hotel as ‘Felix’s’;
and Felix had found that this was very good for trade. The Grand Babylon
was managed accordingly. The ‘note’ of its policy was discretion, always
discretion, and quietude, simplicity, remoteness. The place was like a palace
incognito. There was no gold sign over the roof, not even an explanatory
word at the entrance. You walked down a small side street off the Strand,
you saw a plain brown building in front of you, with two mahogany swing
doors, and an official behind each; the doors opened noiselessly; you
entered; you were in Felix’s. If you meant to be a guest, you, or your
courier, gave your card to Miss Spencer. Upon no consideration did you ask
for the tariff. It was not good form to mention prices at the Grand Babylon;
the prices were enormous, but you never mentioned them. At the conclusion
of your stay a bill was presented, brief and void of dry details, and you paid
it without a word. You met with a stately civility, that was all. No one had
originally asked you to come; no one expressed the hope that you would
come again. The Grand Babylon was far above such manoeuvres; it defied
competition by ignoring it; and consequently was nearly always full during
the season.

If there was one thing more than another that annoyed the Grand Babylon
—put its back up, so to speak—it was to be compared with, or to be
mistaken for, an American hotel. The Grand Babylon was resolutely
opposed to American methods of eating, drinking, and lodging—but
especially American methods of drinking. The resentment of Jules, on being
requested to supply Mr Theodore Racksole with an Angel Kiss, will
therefore be appreciated.
‘Anybody with Mr Theodore Racksole?’ asked Jules, continuing his
conversation with Miss Spencer. He put a scornful stress on every syllable
of the guest’s name.
‘Miss Racksole—she’s in No. 111.’
Jules paused, and stroked his left whisker as it lay on his gleaming white
collar.
‘She’s where?’ he queried, with a peculiar emphasis.
‘No. 111. I couldn’t help it. There was no other room with a bathroom
and dressing-room on that floor.’ Miss Spencer’s voice had an appealing
tone of excuse.
‘Why didn’t you tell Mr Theodore Racksole and Miss Racksole that we
were unable to accommodate them?’
‘Because Babs was within hearing.’
Only three people in the wide world ever dreamt of applying to Mr Felix
Babylon the playful but mean abbreviation—Babs: those three were Jules,
Miss Spencer, and Rocco. Jules had invented it. No one but he would have
had either the wit or the audacity to do so.
‘You’d better see that Miss Racksole changes her room to-night,’ Jules
said after another pause. ‘Leave it to me: I’ll fix it. Au revoir! It’s three
minutes to eight. I shall take charge of the dining-room myself to-night.’
And Jules departed, rubbing his fine white hands slowly and
meditatively. It was a trick of his, to rub his hands with a strange,
roundabout motion, and the action denoted that some unusual excitement
was in the air.
At eight o’clock precisely dinner was served in the immense salle à
manger, that chaste yet splendid apartment of white and gold. At a small
table near one of the windows a young lady sat alone. Her frocks said Paris,
but her face unmistakably said New York. It was a self-possessed and

bewitching face, the face of a woman thoroughly accustomed to doing
exactly what she liked, when she liked, how she liked: the face of a woman
who had taught hundreds of gilded young men the true art of fetching and
carrying, and who, by twenty years or so of parental spoiling, had come to
regard herself as the feminine equivalent of the Tsar of All the Russias.
Such women are only made in America, and they only come to their full
bloom in Europe, which they imagine to be a continent created by
Providence for their diversion.
The young lady by the window glanced disapprovingly at the menu card.
Then she looked round the dining-room, and, while admiring the diners,
decided that the room itself was rather small and plain. Then she gazed
through the open window, and told herself that though the Thames by
twilight was passable enough, it was by no means level with the Hudson, on
whose shores her father had a hundred thousand dollar country cottage.
Then she returned to the menu, and with a pursing of lovely lips said that
there appeared to be nothing to eat.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Nella.’ It was Mr Racksole, the intrepid
millionaire who had dared to order an Angel Kiss in the smoke-room of the
Grand Babylon. Nella—her proper name was Helen—smiled at her parent
cautiously, reserving to herself the right to scold if she should feel so
inclined.
‘You always are late, father,’ she said.
‘Only on a holiday,’ he added. ‘What is there to eat?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then let’s have it. I’m hungry. I’m never so hungry as when I’m being
seriously idle.’
‘Consommé Britannia,’ she began to read out from the menu, ‘Saumon
d’Ecosse, Sauce Genoise, Aspics de Homard. Oh, heavens! Who wants
these horrid messes on a night like this?’
‘But, Nella, this is the best cooking in Europe,’ he protested.
‘Say, father,’ she said, with seeming irrelevance, ‘had you forgotten it’s
my birthday to-morrow?’
‘Have I ever forgotten your birthday, O most costly daughter?’
‘On the whole you’ve been a most satisfactory dad,’ she answered
sweetly, ‘and to reward you I’ll be content this year with the cheapest

birthday treat you ever gave me. Only I’ll have it to-night.’
‘Well,’ he said, with the long-suffering patience, the readiness for any
surprise, of a parent whom Nella had thoroughly trained, ‘what is it?’
‘It’s this. Let’s have filleted steak and a bottle of Bass for dinner to-night.
It will be simply exquisite. I shall love it.’
‘But my dear Nella,’ he exclaimed, ‘steak and beer at Felix’s! It’s
impossible! Moreover, young women still under twenty-three cannot be
permitted to drink Bass.’
‘I said steak and Bass, and as for being twenty-three, shall be going in
twenty-four to-morrow.’
Miss Racksole set her small white teeth.
There was a gentle cough. Jules stood over them. It must have been out
of a pure spirit of adventure that he had selected this table for his own
services. Usually Jules did not personally wait at dinner. He merely hovered
observant, like a captain on the bridge during the mate’s watch. Regular
frequenters of the hotel felt themselves honoured when Jules attached
himself to their tables.
Theodore Racksole hesitated one second, and then issued the order with a
fine air of carelessness:
‘Filleted steak for two, and a bottle of Bass.’ It was the bravest act of
Theodore Racksole’s life, and yet at more than one previous crisis a high
courage had not been lacking to him.
‘It’s not in the menu, sir,’ said Jules the imperturbable.
‘Never mind. Get it. We want it.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Jules walked to the service-door, and, merely affecting to look behind,
came immediately back again.
‘Mr Rocco’s compliments, sir, and he regrets to be unable to serve steak
and Bass to-night, sir.’
‘Mr Rocco?’ questioned Racksole lightly.
‘Mr Rocco,’ repeated Jules with firmness.
‘And who is Mr Rocco?’

‘Mr Rocco is our chef, sir.’ Jules had the expression of a man who is
asked to explain who Shakespeare was.
The two men looked at each other. It seemed incredible that Theodore
Racksole, the ineffable Racksole, who owned a thousand miles of railway,
several towns, and sixty votes in Congress, should be defied by a waiter, or
even by a whole hotel. Yet so it was. When Europe’s effete back is against
the wall not a regiment of millionaires can turn its flank. Jules had the calm
expression of a strong man sure of victory. His face said: ‘You beat me
once, but not this time, my New York friend!’
As for Nella, knowing her father, she foresaw interesting events, and
waited confidently for the steak. She did not feel hungry, and she could
afford to wait.
‘Excuse me a moment, Nella,’ said Theodore Racksole quietly, ‘I shall be
back in about two seconds,’ and he strode out of the salle à manger. No one
in the room recognized the millionaire, for he was unknown to London, this
being his first visit to Europe for over twenty years. Had anyone done so,
and caught the expression on his face, that man might have trembled for an
explosion which should have blown the entire Grand Babylon into the
Thames.
Jules retired strategically to a corner. He had fired; it was the antagonist’s
turn. A long and varied experience had taught Jules that a guest who
embarks on the subjugation of a waiter is almost always lost; the waiter has
so many advantages in such a contest.

Chapter Two HOW MR RACKSOLE
OBTAINED HIS DINNER
NEVERTHELESS, there are men with a confirmed habit of getting their
own way, even as guests in an exclusive hotel: and Theodore Racksole had
long since fallen into that useful practice—except when his only daughter
Helen, motherless but high-spirited girl, chose to think that his way crossed
hers, in which case Theodore capitulated and fell back. But when Theodore
and his daughter happened to be going one and the same road, which was
pretty often, then Heaven alone might help any obstacle that was so ill-
advised as to stand in their path. Jules, great and observant man though he
was, had not noticed the terrible projecting chins of both father and
daughter, otherwise it is possible he would have reconsidered the question
of the steak and Bass.
Theodore Racksole went direct to the entrance-hall of the hotel, and
entered Miss Spencer’s sanctum.
‘I want to see Mr Babylon,’ he said, ‘without the delay of an instant.’
Miss Spencer leisurely raised her flaxen head.
‘I am afraid—,’ she began the usual formula. It was part of her daily duty
to discourage guests who desired to see Mr Babylon.
‘No, no,’ said Racksole quickly, ‘I don’t want any “I’m afraids.” This is
business. If you had been the ordinary hotel clerk I should have slipped you
a couple of sovereigns into your hand, and the thing would have been done.
As you are not—as you are obviously above bribes—I merely say to you,
I must see Mr Babylon at once on an affair of the utmost urgency. My name
is Racksole—Theodore Racksole.’
‘Of New York?’ questioned a voice at the door, with a slight foreign
accent.
The millionaire turned sharply, and saw a rather short, French-looking
man, with a bald head, a grey beard, a long and perfectly-built frock coat,
eye-glasses attached to a minute silver chain, and blue eyes that seemed to
have the transparent innocence of a maid’s.

‘There is only one,’ said Theodore Racksole succinctly.
‘You wish to see me?’ the new-comer suggested.
‘You are Mr Felix Babylon?’
The man bowed.
‘At this moment I wish to see you more than anyone else in the world,’
said Racksole. ‘I am consumed and burnt up with a desire to see you, Mr
Babylon.
I only want a few minutes’ quiet chat. I fancy I can settle my business in
that time.’
With a gesture Mr Babylon invited the millionaire down a side corridor,
at the end of which was Mr Babylon’s private room, a miracle of Louis XV
furniture and tapestry: like most unmarried men with large incomes, Mr
Babylon had ‘tastes’ of a highly expensive sort.
The landlord and his guest sat down opposite each other. Theodore
Racksole had met with the usual millionaire’s luck in this adventure, for Mr
Babylon made a practice of not allowing himself to be interviewed by his
guests, however distinguished, however wealthy, however pertinacious. If
he had not chanced to enter Miss Spencer’s office at that precise moment,
and if he had not been impressed in a somewhat peculiar way by the
physiognomy of the millionaire, not all Mr Racksole’s American energy and
ingenuity would have availed for a confabulation with the owner of the
Grand Babylon Hôtel that night. Theodore Racksole, however, was ignorant
that a mere accident had served him. He took all the credit to himself.
‘I read in the New York papers some months ago,’ Theodore started,
without even a clearing of the throat, ‘that this hotel of yours, Mr Babylon,
was to be sold to a limited company, but it appears that the sale was not
carried out.’
‘It was not,’ answered Mr Babylon frankly, ‘and the reason was that the
middle-men between the proposed company and myself wished to make a
large secret profit, and I declined to be a party to such a profit. They were
firm; I was firm; and so the affair came to nothing.’
‘The agreed price was satisfactory?’
‘Quite.’
‘May I ask what the price was?’

‘Are you a buyer, Mr Racksole?’
‘Are you a seller, Mr Babylon?’
‘I am,’ said Babylon, ‘on terms. The price was four hundred thousand
pounds, including the leasehold and goodwill. But I sell only on the
condition that the buyer does not transfer the property to a limited company
at a higher figure.’
‘I will put one question to you, Mr Babylon,’ said the millionaire. ‘What
have your profits averaged during the last four years?’
‘Thirty-four thousand pounds per annum.’
‘I buy,’ said Theodore Racksole, smiling contentedly; ‘and we will, if you
please, exchange contract-letters on the spot.’
‘You come quickly to a resolution, Mr Racksole. But perhaps you have
been considering this question for a long time?’
‘On the contrary,’ Racksole looked at his watch, ‘I have been considering
it for six minutes.’
Felix Babylon bowed, as one thoroughly accustomed to eccentricity of
wealth.
‘The beauty of being well-known,’ Racksole continued, ‘is that you
needn’t trouble about preliminary explanations. You, Mr Babylon, probably
know all about me. I know a good deal about you. We can take each other
for granted without reference. Really, it is as simple to buy an hotel or a
railroad as it is to buy a watch, provided one is equal to the transaction.’
‘Precisely,’ agreed Mr Babylon smiling. ‘Shall we draw up the little
informal contract? There are details to be thought of. But it occurs to me
that you cannot have dined yet, and might prefer to deal with minor
questions after dinner.’
‘I have not dined,’ said the millionaire, with emphasis, ‘and in that
connexion will you do me a favour? Will you send for Mr Rocco?’
‘You wish to see him, naturally.’
‘I do,’ said the millionaire, and added, ‘about my dinner.’
‘Rocco is a great man,’ murmured Mr Babylon as he touched the bell,
ignoring the last words. ‘My compliments to Mr Rocco,’ he said to the page
who answered his summons, ‘and if it is quite convenient I should be glad
to see him here for a moment.’

‘What do you give Rocco?’ Racksole inquired.
‘Two thousand a year and the treatment of an Ambassador.’
‘I shall give him the treatment of an Ambassador and three thousand.’
‘You will be wise,’ said Felix Babylon.
At that moment Rocco came into the room, very softly—a man of forty,
thin, with long, thin hands, and an inordinately long brown silky moustache.
‘Rocco,’ said Felix Babylon, ‘let me introduce Mr Theodore Racksole, of
New York.’
‘Sharmed,’ said Rocco, bowing. ‘Ze—ze, vat you call it, millionaire?’
‘Exactly,’ Racksole put in, and continued quickly: ‘Mr Rocco, I wish to
acquaint you before any other person with the fact that I have purchased the
Grand Babylon Hôtel. If you think well to afford me the privilege of
retaining your services I shall be happy to offer you a remuneration of three
thousand a year.’
‘Tree, you said?’
‘Three.’
‘Sharmed.’
‘And now, Mr Rocco, will you oblige me very much by ordering a plain
beefsteak and a bottle of Bass to be served by Jules—I particularly desire
Jules—at table No. 17 in the dining-room in ten minutes from now? And
will you do me the honour of lunching with me to-morrow?’
Mr Rocco gasped, bowed, muttered something in French, and departed.
Five minutes later the buyer and seller of the Grand Babylon Hôtel had
each signed a curt document, scribbled out on the hotel note-paper. Felix
Babylon asked no questions, and it was this heroic absence of curiosity, of
surprise on his part, that more than anything else impressed Theodore
Racksole. How many hotel proprietors in the world, Racksole asked
himself, would have let that beef-steak and Bass go by without a word of
comment.
‘From what date do you wish the purchase to take effect?’ asked
Babylon.
‘Oh,’ said Racksole lightly, ‘it doesn’t matter. Shall we say from to-
night?’

‘As you will. I have long wished to retire. And now that the moment has
come—and so dramatically—I am ready. I shall return to Switzerland. One
cannot spend much money there, but it is my native land. I shall be the
richest man in Switzerland.’ He smiled with a kind of sad amusement.
‘I suppose you are fairly well off?’ said Racksole, in that easy familiar
style of his, as though the idea had just occurred to him.
‘Besides what I shall receive from you, I have half a million invested.’
‘Then you will be nearly a millionaire?’
Felix Babylon nodded.
‘I congratulate you, my dear sir,’ said Racksole, in the tone of a judge
addressing a newly-admitted barrister. ‘Nine hundred thousand pounds,
expressed in francs, will sound very nice—in Switzerland.’
‘Of course to you, Mr Racksole, such a sum would be poverty. Now if
one might guess at your own wealth?’ Felix Babylon was imitating the
other’s freedom.
‘I do not know, to five millions or so, what I am worth,’ said Racksole,
with sincerity, his tone indicating that he would have been glad to give the
information if it were in his power.
‘You have had anxieties, Mr Racksole?’
‘Still have them. I am now holiday-making in London with my daughter
in order to get rid of them for a time.’
‘Is the purchase of hotels your notion of relaxation, then?’
Racksole shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is a change from railroads,’ he
laughed.
‘Ah, my friend, you little know what you have bought.’
‘Oh! yes I do,’ returned Racksole; ‘I have bought just the first hotel in the
world.’
‘That is true, that is true,’ Babylon admitted, gazing meditatively at the
antique Persian carpet. ‘There is nothing, anywhere, like my hotel. But you
will regret the purchase, Mr Racksole. It is no business of mine, of course,
but I cannot help repeating that you will regret the purchase.’
‘I never regret.’
‘Then you will begin very soon—perhaps to-night.’

‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because the Grand Babylon is the Grand Babylon. You think because
you control a railroad, or an iron-works, or a line of steamers, therefore you
can control anything. But no. Not the Grand Babylon. There is something
about the Grand Babylon—’ He threw up his hands.
‘Servants rob you, of course.’
‘Of course. I suppose I lose a hundred pounds a week in that way. But it
is not that I mean. It is the guests. The guests are too—too distinguished.
The great Ambassadors, the great financiers, the great nobles, all the men
that move the world, put up under my roof. London is the centre of
everything, and my hotel—your hotel—is the centre of London. Once I had
a King and a Dowager Empress staying here at the same time. Imagine
that!’
‘A great honour, Mr Babylon. But wherein lies the difficulty?’
‘Mr Racksole,’ was the grim reply, ‘what has become of your shrewdness
—that shrewdness which has made your fortune so immense that even you
cannot calculate it? Do you not perceive that the roof which habitually
shelters all the force, all the authority of the world, must necessarily also
shelter nameless and numberless plotters, schemers, evil-doers, and workers
of mischief? The thing is as clear as day—and as dark as night. Mr
Racksole, I never know by whom I am surrounded. I never know what is
going forward.
Only sometimes I get hints, glimpses of strange acts and strange secrets.
You mentioned my servants. They are almost all good servants, skilled,
competent. But what are they besides? For anything I know my fourth sub-
chef may be an agent of some European Government. For anything I know
my invaluable Miss Spencer may be in the pay of a court dressmaker or a
Frankfort banker. Even Rocco may be someone else in addition to Rocco.’
‘That makes it all the more interesting,’ remarked Theodore Racksole.
‘What a long time you have been, Father,’ said Nella, when he returned
to table No. 17 in the salle à manger.
‘Only twenty minutes, my dove.’
‘But you said two seconds. There is a difference.’
‘Well, you see, I had to wait for the steak to cook.’

‘Did you have much trouble in getting my birthday treat?’
‘No trouble. But it didn’t come quite as cheap as you said.’
‘What do you mean, Father?’
‘Only that I’ve bought the entire hotel. But don’t split.’
‘Father, you always were a delicious parent. Shall you give me the hotel
for a birthday present?’
‘No. I shall run it—as an amusement. By the way, who is that chair for?’
He noticed that a third cover had been laid at the table.
‘That is for a friend of mine who came in about five minutes ago. Of
course I told him he must share our steak. He’ll be here in a moment.’
‘May I respectfully inquire his name?’
‘Dimmock—Christian name Reginald; profession, English companion to
Prince Aribert of Posen. I met him when I was in St Petersburg with cousin
Hetty last fall. Oh; here he is. Mr Dimmock, this is my dear father. He has
succeeded with the steak.’
Theodore Racksole found himself confronted by a very young man, with
deep black eyes, and a fresh, boyish expression. They began to talk.
Jules approached with the steak. Racksole tried to catch the waiter’s eye,
but could not. The dinner proceeded.
‘Oh, Father!’ cried Nella, ‘what a lot of mustard you have taken!’
‘Have I?’ he said, and then he happened to glance into a mirror on his left
hand between two windows. He saw the reflection of Jules, who stood
behind his chair, and he saw Jules give a slow, significant, ominous wink to
Mr Dimmock—Christian name, Reginald.
He examined his mustard in silence. He thought that perhaps he had
helped himself rather plenteously to mustard.

Chapter Three AT THREE A.M.
MR REGINALD DIMMOCK proved himself, despite his extreme youth,
to be a man of the world and of experiences, and a practised talker.
Conversation between him and Nella Racksole seemed never to flag. They
chattered about St Petersburg, and the ice on the Neva, and the tenor at the
opera who had been exiled to Siberia, and the quality of Russian tea, and
the sweetness of Russian champagne, and various other aspects of
Muscovite existence. Russia exhausted, Nella lightly outlined her own
doings since she had met the young man in the Tsar’s capital, and this
recital brought the topic round to London, where it stayed till the final piece
of steak was eaten. Theodore Racksole noticed that Mr Dimmock gave very
meagre information about his own movements, either past or future. He
regarded the youth as a typical hanger-on of Courts, and wondered how he
had obtained his post of companion to Prince Aribert of Posen, and who
Prince Aribert of Posen might be. The millionaire thought he had once
heard of Posen, but he wasn’t sure; he rather fancied it was one of those
small nondescript German States of which five-sixths of the subjects are
Palace officials, and the rest charcoal-burners or innkeepers. Until the meal
was nearly over, Racksole said little—perhaps his thoughts were too busy
with Jules’ wink to Mr Dimmock, but when ices had been followed by
coffee, he decided that it might be as well, in the interests of the hotel, to
discover something about his daughter’s friend. He never for an instant
questioned her right to possess her own friends; he had always left her in
the most amazing liberty, relying on her inherited good sense to keep her
out of mischief; but, quite apart from the wink, he was struck by Nella’s
attitude towards Mr Dimmock, an attitude in which an amiable scorn was
blended with an evident desire to propitiate and please.
‘Nella tells me, Mr Dimmock, that you hold a confidential position with
Prince Aribert of Posen,’ said Racksole. ‘You will pardon an American’s
ignorance, but is Prince Aribert a reigning Prince—what, I believe, you call
in Europe, a Prince Regnant?’
‘His Highness is not a reigning Prince, nor ever likely to be,’ answered
Dimmock. ‘The Grand Ducal Throne of Posen is occupied by his

Highness’s nephew, the Grand Duke Eugen.’
‘Nephew?’ cried Nella with astonishment.
‘Why not, dear lady?’
‘But Prince Aribert is surely very young?’
‘The Prince, by one of those vagaries of chance which occur sometimes
in the history of families, is precisely the same age as the Grand Duke. The
late Grand Duke’s father was twice married. Hence this youthfulness on the
part of an uncle.’
‘How delicious to be the uncle of someone as old as yourself! But I
suppose it is no fun for Prince Aribert. I suppose he has to be frightfully
respectful and obedient, and all that, to his nephew?’
‘The Grand Duke and my Serene master are like brothers. At present, of
course, Prince Aribert is nominally heir to the throne, but as no doubt you
are aware, the Grand Duke will shortly marry a near relative of the
Emperor’s, and should there be a family—’ Mr Dimmock stopped and
shrugged his straight shoulders. ‘The Grand Duke,’ he went on, without
finishing the last sentence, ‘would much prefer Prince Aribert to be his
successor. He really doesn’t want to marry. Between ourselves, strictly
between ourselves, he regards marriage as rather a bore. But, of course,
being a German Grand Duke, he is bound to marry. He owes it to his
country, to Posen.’
‘How large is Posen?’ asked Racksole bluntly.
‘Father,’ Nella interposed laughing, ‘you shouldn’t ask such inconvenient
questions. You ought to have guessed that it isn’t etiquette to inquire about
the size of a German Dukedom.’
‘I am sure,’ said Dimmock, with a polite smile, ‘that the Grand Duke is
as much amused as anyone at the size of his territory. I forget the exact
acreage, but I remember that once Prince Aribert and myself walked across
it and back again in a single day.’
‘Then the Grand Duke cannot travel very far within his own dominions?
You may say that the sun does set on his empire?’
‘It does,’ said Dimmock.
‘Unless the weather is cloudy,’ Nella put in. ‘Is the Grand Duke content
always to stay at home?’

‘On the contrary, he is a great traveller, much more so than Prince
Aribert.
I may tell you, what no one knows at present, outside this hotel, that his
Royal Highness the Grand Duke, with a small suite, will be here to-
morrow.’
‘In London?’ asked Nella.
‘Yes.’
‘In this hotel?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh! How lovely!’
‘That is why your humble servant is here to-night—a sort of advance
guard.’
‘But I understood,’ Racksole said, ‘that you were—er—attached to
Prince Aribert, the uncle.’
‘I am. Prince Aribert will also be here. The Grand Duke and the Prince
have business about important investments connected with the Grand
Duke’s marriage settlement.... In the highest quarters, you understand.’
‘For so discreet a person,’ thought Racksole, ‘you are fairly
communicative.’ Then he said aloud: ‘Shall we go out on the terrace?’
As they crossed the dining-room Jules stopped Mr Dimmock and handed
him a letter. ‘Just come, sir, by messenger,’ said Jules.
Nella dropped behind for a second with her father. ‘Leave me alone with
this boy a little—there’s a dear parent,’ she whispered in his ear.
‘I am a mere cypher, an obedient nobody,’ Racksole replied, pinching her
arm surreptitiously. ‘Treat me as such. Use me as you like. I will go and
look after my hotel’ And soon afterwards he disappeared.
Nella and Mr Dimmock sat together on the terrace, sipping iced drinks.
They made a handsome couple, bowered amid plants which blossomed at
the command of a Chelsea wholesale florist. People who passed by
remarked privately that from the look of things there was the beginning of a
romance in that conversation. Perhaps there was, but a more intimate
acquaintance with the character of Nella Racksole would have been
necessary in order to predict what precise form that romance would take.

Jules himself served the liquids, and at ten o’clock he brought another
note. Entreating a thousand pardons, Reginald Dimmock, after he had
glanced at the note, excused himself on the plea of urgent business for his
Serene master, uncle of the Grand Duke of Posen. He asked if he might
fetch Mr Racksole, or escort Miss Racksole to her father. But Miss
Racksole said gaily that she felt no need of an escort, and should go to bed.
She added that her father and herself always endeavoured to be independent
of each other.
Just then Theodore Racksole had found his way once more into Mr
Babylon’s private room. Before arriving there, however, he had discovered
that in some mysterious manner the news of the change of proprietorship
had worked its way down to the lowest strata of the hotel’s cosmos. The
corridors hummed with it, and even under-servants were to be seen
discussing the thing, just as though it mattered to them.
‘Have a cigar, Mr Racksole,’ said the urbane Mr Babylon, ‘and a
mouthful of the oldest cognac in all Europe.’
In a few minutes these two were talking eagerly, rapidly. Felix Babylon
was astonished at Racksole’s capacity for absorbing the details of hotel
management. And as for Racksole he soon realized that Felix Babylon must
be a prince of hotel managers. It had never occurred to Racksole before that
to manage an hotel, even a large hotel, could be a specially interesting
affair, or that it could make any excessive demands upon the brains of the
manager; but he came to see that he had underrated the possibilities of an
hotel. The business of the Grand Babylon was enormous. It took Racksole,
with all his genius for organization, exactly half an hour to master the
details of the hotel laundry-work. And the laundry-work was but one branch
of activity amid scores, and not a very large one at that. The machinery of
checking supplies, and of establishing a mean ratio between the raw stuff
received in the kitchen and the number of meals served in the salle à
manger and the private rooms, was very complicated and delicate. When
Racksole had grasped it, he at once suggested some improvements, and this
led to a long theoretical discussion, and the discussion led to digressions,
and then Felix Babylon, in a moment of absent-mindedness, yawned.
Racksole looked at the gilt clock on the high mantelpiece.
‘Great Scott!’ he said. ‘It’s three o’clock. Mr Babylon, accept my
apologies for having kept you up to such an absurd hour.’

‘I have not spent so pleasant an evening for many years. You have let me
ride my hobby to my heart’s content. It is I who should apologize.’
Racksole rose.
‘I should like to ask you one question,’ said Babylon. ‘Have you ever had
anything to do with hotels before?’
‘Never,’ said Racksole.
‘Then you have missed your vocation. You could have been the greatest
of all hotel-managers. You would have been greater than me, and I am
unequalled, though I keep only one hotel, and some men have half a dozen.
Mr Racksole, why have you never run an hotel?’
‘Heaven knows,’ he laughed, ‘but you flatter me, Mr Babylon.’
‘I? Flatter? You do not know me. I flatter no one, except, perhaps, now
and then an exceptionally distinguished guest. In which case I give suitable
instructions as to the bill.’
‘Speaking of distinguished guests, I am told that a couple of German
princes are coming here to-morrow.’
‘That is so.’
‘Does one do anything? Does one receive them formally—stand bowing
in the entrance-hall, or anything of that sort?’
‘Not necessarily. Not unless one wishes. The modern hotel proprietor is
not like an innkeeper of the Middle Ages, and even princes do not expect to
see him unless something should happen to go wrong. As a matter of fact,
though the Grand Duke of Posen and Prince Aribert have both honoured me
by staying here before, I have never even set eyes on them. You will find all
arrangements have been made.’
They talked a little longer, and then Racksole said good night. ‘Let me
see you to your room. The lifts will be closed and the place will be deserted.
As for myself, I sleep here,’ and Mr Babylon pointed to an inner door.
‘No, thanks,’ said Racksole; ‘let me explore my own hotel
unaccompanied. I believe I can discover my room.’ When he got fairly into
the passages, Racksole was not so sure that he could discover his own
room. The number was 107, but he had forgotten whether it was on the first
or second floor.

Travelling in a lift, one is unconscious of floors. He passed several lift-
doorways, but he could see no glint of a staircase; in all self-respecting
hotels staircases have gone out of fashion, and though hotel architects still
continue, for old sakes’ sake, to build staircases, they are tucked away in
remote corners where their presence is not likely to offend the eye of a
spoiled and cosmopolitan public. The hotel seemed vast, uncanny, deserted.
An electric light glowed here and there at long intervals. On the thick
carpets, Racksole’s thinly-shod feet made no sound, and he wandered at
ease to and fro, rather amused, rather struck by the peculiar senses of night
and mystery which had suddenly come over him. He fancied he could hear
a thousand snores peacefully descending from the upper realms. At length
he found a staircase, a very dark and narrow one, and presently he was on
the first floor. He soon discovered that the numbers of the rooms on this
floor did not get beyond seventy. He encountered another staircase and
ascended to the second floor. By the decoration of the walls he recognized
this floor as his proper home, and as he strolled through the long corridor he
whistled a low, meditative whistle of satisfaction. He thought he heard a
step in the transverse corridor, and instinctively he obliterated himself in a
recess which held a service-cabinet and a chair. He did hear a step. Peeping
cautiously out, he perceived, what he had not perceived previously, that a
piece of white ribbon had been tied round the handle of the door of one of
the bedrooms. Then a man came round the corner of the transverse corridor,
and Racksole drew back. It was Jules—Jules with his hands in his pockets
and a slouch hat over his eyes, but in other respects attired as usual.
Racksole, at that instant, remembered with a special vividness what Felix
Babylon had said to him at their first interview. He wished he had brought
his revolver. He didn’t know why he should feel the desirability of a
revolver in a London hotel of the most unimpeachable fair fame, but he did
feel the desirability of such an instrument of attack and defence. He
privately decided that if Jules went past his recess he would take him by the
throat and in that attitude put a few plain questions to this highly dubious
waiter. But Jules had stopped. The millionaire made another cautious
observation. Jules, with infinite gentleness, was turning the handle of the
door to which the white ribbon was attached. The door slowly yielded and
Jules disappeared within the room. After a brief interval, the night-prowling
Jules reappeared, closed the door as softly as he had opened it, removed the
ribbon, returned upon his steps, and vanished down the transverse corridor.

‘This is quaint,’ said Racksole; ‘quaint to a degree!’
It occurred to him to look at the number of the room, and he stole
towards it.
‘Well, I’m d—d!’ he murmured wonderingly.
The number was 111, his daughter’s room! He tried to open it, but the
door was locked. Rushing to his own room, No. 107, he seized one of a pair
of revolvers (the kind that are made for millionaires) and followed after
Jules down the transverse corridor. At the end of this corridor was a
window; the window was open; and Jules was innocently gazing out of the
window. Ten silent strides, and Theodore Racksole was upon him.
‘One word, my friend,’ the millionaire began, carelessly waving the
revolver in the air. Jules was indubitably startled, but by an admirable
exercise of self-control he recovered possession of his faculties in a second.
‘Sir?’ said Jules.
‘I just want to be informed, what the deuce you were doing in No. 111 a
moment ago.’
‘I had been requested to go there,’ was the calm response.
‘You are a liar, and not a very clever one. That is my daughter’s room.
Now—out with it, before I decide whether to shoot you or throw you into
the street.’
‘Excuse me, sir, No. 111 is occupied by a gentleman.’
‘I advise you that it is a serious error of judgement to contradict me, my
friend. Don’t do it again. We will go to the room together, and you shall
prove that the occupant is a gentleman, and not my daughter.’
‘Impossible, sir,’ said Jules.
‘Scarcely that,’ said Racksole, and he took Jules by the sleeve. The
millionaire knew for a certainty that Nella occupied No. 111, for he had
examined the room with her, and himself seen that her trunks and her maid
and herself had arrived there in safety. ‘Now open the door,’ whispered
Racksole, when they reached No.111.
‘I must knock.’
‘That is just what you mustn’t do. Open it. No doubt you have your pass-
key.’

Confronted by the revolver, Jules readily obeyed, yet with a deprecatory
gesture, as though he would not be responsible for this outrage against the
decorum of hotel life. Racksole entered. The room was brilliantly lighted.
‘A visitor, who insists on seeing you, sir,’ said Jules, and fled.
Mr Reginald Dimmock, still in evening dress, and smoking a cigarette,
rose hurriedly from a table.
‘Hello, my dear Mr Racksole, this is an unexpected—ah—pleasure.’
‘Where is my daughter? This is her room.’
‘Did I catch what you said, Mr Racksole?’
‘I venture to remark that this is Miss Racksole’s room.’
‘My good sir,’ answered Dimmock, ‘you must be mad to dream of such a
thing.
Only my respect for your daughter prevents me from expelling you
forcibly, for such an extraordinary suggestion.’
A small spot half-way down the bridge of the millionaire’s nose turned
suddenly white.
‘With your permission,’ he said in a low calm voice, ‘I will examine the
dressing-room and the bath-room.’
‘Just listen to me a moment,’ Dimmock urged, in a milder tone.
‘I’ll listen to you afterwards, my young friend,’ said Racksole, and he
proceeded to search the bath-room, and the dressing-room, without any
result whatever. ‘Lest my attitude might be open to misconstruction, Mr
Dimmock, I may as well tell you that I have the most perfect confidence in
my daughter, who is as well able to take care of herself as any woman I ever
met, but since you entered it there have been one or two rather mysterious
occurrences in this hotel. That is all.’ Feeling a draught of air on his
shoulder, Racksole turned to the window. ‘For instance,’ he added, ‘I
perceive that this window is broken, badly broken, and from the outside.
Now, how could that have occurred?’
‘If you will kindly hear reason, Mr Racksole,’ said Dimmock in his best
diplomatic manner, ‘I will endeavour to explain things to you. I regarded
your first question to me when you entered my room as being offensively
put, but I now see that you had some justification.’ He smiled politely. ‘I
was passing along this corridor about eleven o’clock, when I found Miss

Racksole in a difficulty with the hotel servants. Miss Racksole was retiring
to rest in this room when a large stone, which must have been thrown from
the Embankment, broke the window, as you see. Apart from the discomfort
of the broken window, she did not care to remain in the room. She argued
that where one stone had come another might follow. She therefore insisted
on her room being changed. The servants said that there was no other room
available with a dressing-room and bath-room attached, and your daughter
made a point of these matters. I at once offered to exchange apartments with
her. She did me the honour to accept my offer. Our respective belongings
were moved—and that is all. Miss Racksole is at this moment, I trust,
asleep in No. 124.’
Theodore Racksole looked at the young man for a few seconds in silence.
There was a faint knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ said Racksole loudly.
Someone pushed open the door, but remained standing on the mat. It was
Nella’s maid, in a dressing-gown.
‘Miss Racksole’s compliments, and a thousand excuses, but a book of
hers was left on the mantelshelf in this room. She cannot sleep, and wishes
to read.’
‘Mr Dimmock, I tender my apologies—my formal apologies,’ said
Racksole, when the girl had gone away with the book. ‘Good night.’
‘Pray don’t mention it,’ said Dimmock suavely—and bowed him out.

Chapter Four ENTRANCE OF THE PRINCE
NEVERTHELESS, sundry small things weighed on Racksole’s mind.
First there was Jules’ wink. Then there was the ribbon on the door-handle
and Jules’ visit to No. 111, and the broken window—broken from the
outside. Racksole did not forget that the time was 3 a.m. He slept but little
that night, but he was glad that he had bought the Grand Babylon Hôtel. It
was an acquisition which seemed to promise fun and diversion.
The next morning he came across Mr Babylon early. ‘I have emptied my
private room of all personal papers,’ said Babylon, ‘and it is now at your
disposal.
I purpose, if agreeable to yourself, to stay on in the hotel as a guest for
the present. We have much to settle with regard to the completion of the
purchase, and also there are things which you might want to ask me. Also,
to tell the truth, I am not anxious to leave the old place with too much
suddenness. It will be a wrench to me.’
‘I shall be delighted if you will stay,’ said the millionaire, ‘but it must be
as my guest, not as the guest of the hotel.’
‘You are very kind.’
‘As for wishing to consult you, no doubt I shall have need to do so, but I
must say that the show seems to run itself.’
‘Ah!’ said Babylon thoughtfully. ‘I have heard of hotels that run
themselves. If they do, you may be sure that they obey the laws of gravity
and run downwards. You will have your hands full. For example, have you
yet heard about Miss Spencer?’
‘No,’ said Racksole. ‘What of her?’
‘She has mysteriously vanished during the night, and nobody appears to
be able to throw any light on the affair. Her room is empty, her boxes gone.
You will want someone to take her place, and that someone will not be
very easy to get.’
‘H’m!’ Racksole said, after a pause. ‘Hers is not the only post that falls
vacant to-day.’

A little later, the millionaire installed himself in the late owner’s private
room and rang the bell.
‘I want Jules,’ he said to the page.
While waiting for Jules, Racksole considered the question of Miss
Spencer’s disappearance.
‘Good morning, Jules,’ was his cheerful greeting, when the imperturbable
waiter arrived.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Take a chair.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘We have met before this morning, Jules.’
‘Yes, sir, at 3 a.m.’
‘Rather strange about Miss Spencer’s departure, is it not?’ suggested
Racksole.
‘It is remarkable, sir.’
‘You are aware, of course, that Mr Babylon has transferred all his
interests in this hotel to me?’
‘I have been informed to that effect, sir.’
‘I suppose you know everything that goes on in the hotel, Jules?’
‘As the head waiter, sir, it is my business to keep a general eye on
things.’
‘You speak very good English for a foreigner, Jules.’
‘For a foreigner, sir! I am an Englishman, a Hertfordshire man born and
bred. Perhaps my name has misled you, sir. I am only called Jules because
the head waiter of any really high-class hotel must have either a French or
an Italian name.’
‘I see,’ said Racksole. ‘I think you must be rather a clever person, Jules.’
‘That is not for me to say, sir.’
‘How long has the hotel enjoyed the advantage of your services?’
‘A little over twenty years.’
‘That is a long time to be in one place. Don’t you think it’s time you got
out of the rut? You are still young, and might make a reputation for yourself
in another and wider sphere.’

Racksole looked at the man steadily, and his glance was steadily
returned.
‘You aren’t satisfied with me, sir?’
‘To be frank, Jules, I think—I think you—er—wink too much. And I
think that it is regrettable when a head waiter falls into a habit of taking
white ribbons from the handles of bedroom doors at three in the morning.’
Jules started slightly.
‘I see how it is, sir. You wish me to go, and one pretext, if I may use the
term, is as good as another. Very well, I can’t say that I’m surprised. It
sometimes happens that there is incompatibility of temper between a hotel
proprietor and his head waiter, and then, unless one of them goes, the hotel
is likely to suffer. I will go, Mr Racksole. In fact, I had already thought of
giving notice.’
The millionaire smiled appreciatively. ‘What wages do you require in
lieu of notice? It is my intention that you leave the hotel within an hour.’
‘I require no wages in lieu of notice, sir. I would scorn to accept
anything. And I will leave the hotel in fifteen minutes.’
‘Good-day, then. You have my good wishes and my admiration, so long
as you keep out of my hotel.’
Racksole got up. ‘Good-day, sir. And thank you.’
‘By the way, Jules, it will be useless for you to apply to any other first-
rate European hotel for a post, because I shall take measures which will
ensure the rejection of any such application.’
‘Without discussing the question whether or not there aren’t at least half
a dozen hotels in London alone that would jump for joy at the chance of
getting me,’ answered Jules, ‘I may tell you, sir, that I shall retire from my
profession.’
‘Really! You will turn your brains to a different channel.’
‘No, sir. I shall take rooms in Albemarle Street or Jermyn Street, and just
be content to be a man-about-town. I have saved some twenty thousand
pounds—a mere trifle, but sufficient for my needs, and I shall now proceed
to enjoy it. Pardon me for troubling you with my personal affairs. And
good-day again.’

That afternoon Racksole went with Felix Babylon first to a firm of
solicitors in the City, and then to a stockbroker, in order to carry out the
practical details of the purchase of the hotel.
‘I mean to settle in England,’ said Racksole, as they were coming back.
‘It is the only country—’ and he stopped.
‘The only country?’
‘The only country where you can invest money and spend money with a
feeling of security. In the United States there is nothing worth spending
money on, nothing to buy. In France or Italy, there is no real security.’
‘But surely you are a true American?’ questioned Babylon.
‘I am a true American,’ said Racksole, ‘but my father, who began by
being a bedmaker at an Oxford college, and ultimately made ten million
dollars out of iron in Pittsburg—my father took the wise precaution of
having me educated in England. I had my three years at Oxford, like any
son of the upper middle class! It did me good. It has been worth more to me
than many successful speculations. It taught me that the English language is
different from, and better than, the American language, and that there is
something—I haven’t yet found out exactly what—in English life that
Americans will never get. Why,’ he added, ‘in the United States we still
bribe our judges and our newspapers. And we talk of the eighteenth century
as though it was the beginning of the world. Yes, I shall transfer my
securities to London. I shall build a house in Park Lane, and I shall buy
some immemorial country seat with a history as long as the A. T. and S.
railroad, and I shall calmly and gradually settle down. D’you know—I am
rather a good-natured man for a millionaire, and of a social disposition, and
yet I haven’t six real friends in the whole of New York City. Think of that!’
‘And I,’ said Babylon, ‘have no friends except the friends of my boyhood
in Lausanne. I have spent thirty years in England, and gained nothing but a
perfect knowledge of the English language and as much gold coin as would
fill a rather large box.’
These two plutocrats breathed a simultaneous sigh.
‘Talking of gold coin,’ said Racksole, ‘how much money should you
think Jules has contrived to amass while he has been with you?’
‘Oh!’ Babylon smiled. ‘I should not like to guess. He has had unique
opportunities—opportunities.’

‘Should you consider twenty thousand an extraordinary sum under the
circumstances?’
‘Not at all. Has he been confiding in you?’
‘Somewhat. I have dismissed him.’
‘You have dismissed him?’
‘Why not?’
‘There is no reason why not. But I have felt inclined to dismiss him for
the past ten years, and never found courage to do it.’
‘It was a perfectly simple proceeding, I assure you. Before I had done
with him, I rather liked the fellow.’
‘Miss Spencer and Jules—both gone in one day!’ mused Felix Babylon.
‘And no one to take their places,’ said Racksole. ‘And yet the hotel
continues its way!’
But when Racksole reached the Grand Babylon he found that Miss
Spencer’s chair in the bureau was occupied by a stately and imperious girl,
dressed becomingly in black.
‘Heavens, Nella!’ he cried, going to the bureau. ‘What are you doing
here?’
‘I am taking Mis Spencer’s place. I want to help you with your hotel,
Dad. I fancy I shall make an excellent hotel clerk. I have arranged with a
Miss Selina Smith, one of the typists in the office, to put me up to all the
tips and tricks, and I shall do very well.’
‘But look here, Helen Racksole. We shall have the whole of London
talking about this thing—the greatest of all American heiresses a hotel
clerk! And I came here for quiet and rest!’
‘I suppose it was for the sake of quiet and rest that you bought the hotel,
Papa?’
‘You would insist on the steak,’ he retorted. ‘Get out of this, on the
instant.’
‘Here I am, here to stay,’ said Nella, and deliberately laughed at her
parent.
Just then the face of a fair-haired man of about thirty years appeared at
the bureau window. He was very well-dressed, very aristocratic in his pose,
and he seemed rather angry.

He looked fixedly at Nella and started back.
‘Ach!’ he exclaimed. ‘You!’
‘Yes, your Highness, it is indeed I. Father, this is his Serene Highness
Prince Aribert of Posen—one of our most esteemed customers.’
‘You know my name, Fräulein?’ the new-comer murmured in German.
‘Certainly, Prince,’ Nella replied sweetly. ‘You were plain Count
Steenbock last spring in Paris—doubtless travelling incognito—’
‘Silence,’ he entreated, with a wave of the hand, and his forehead went as
white as paper.

Chapter Five WHAT OCCURRED TO
REGINALD DIMMOCK
IN another moment they were all three talking quite nicely, and with at
any rate an appearance of being natural. Prince Aribert became suave, even
deferential to Nella, and more friendly towards Nella’s father than their
respective positions demanded. The latter amused himself by studying this
sprig of royalty, the first with whom he had ever come into contact. He
decided that the young fellow was personable enough, ‘had no frills on
him,’ and would make an exceptionally good commercial traveller for a
first-class firm. Such was Theodore Racksole’s preliminary estimate of the
man who might one day be the reigning Grand Duke of Posen.
It occurred to Nella, and she smiled at the idea, that the bureau of the
hotel was scarcely the correct place in which to receive this august young
man. There he stood, with his head half-way through the bureau window,
negligently leaning against the woodwork, just as though he were a
stockbroker or the manager of a New York burlesque company.
‘Is your Highness travelling quite alone?’ she asked.
‘By a series of accidents I am,’ he said. ‘My equerry was to have met me
at Charing Cross, but he failed to do so—I cannot imagine why.’
‘Mr Dimmock?’ questioned Racksole.
‘Yes, Dimmock. I do not remember that he ever missed an appointment
before.
You know him? He has been here?’
‘He dined with us last night,’ said Racksole—‘on Nella’s invitation,’ he
added maliciously; ‘but to-day we have seen nothing of him. I know,
however, that he has engaged the State apartments, and also a suite
adjoining the State apartments—No. 55. That is so, isn’t it, Nella?’
‘Yes, Papa,’ she said, having first demurely examined a ledger. ‘Your
Highness would doubtless like to be conducted to your room—apartments I
mean.’ Then Nella laughed deliberately at the Prince, and said, ‘I don’t
know who is the proper person to conduct you, and that’s a fact. The truth is

that Papa and I are rather raw yet in the hotel line. You see, we only bought
the place last night.’
‘You have bought the hotel!’ exclaimed the Prince.
‘That’s so,’ said Racksole.
‘And Felix Babylon has gone?’
‘He is going, if he has not already gone.’
‘Ah! I see,’ said the Prince; ‘this is one of your American “strokes”. You
have bought to sell again, is that not it? You are on your holidays, but you
cannot resist making a few thousands by way of relaxation. I have heard of
such things.’
‘We sha’n’t sell again, Prince, until we are tired of our bargain.
Sometimes we tire very quickly, and sometimes we don’t. It depends—eh?
What?’
Racksole broke off suddenly to attend to a servant in livery who had
quietly entered the bureau and was making urgent mysterious signs to him.
‘If you please, sir,’ the man by frantic gestures implored Mr Theodore
Racksole to come out.
‘Pray don’t let me detain you, Mr Racksole,’ said the Prince, and
therefore the proprietor of the Grand Babylon departed after the servant,
with a queer, curt little bow to Prince Aribert.
‘Mayn’t I come inside?’ said the Prince to Nella immediately the
millionaire had gone.
‘Impossible, Prince,’ Nella laughed. ‘The rule against visitors entering
this bureau is frightfully strict.’
‘How do you know the rule is so strict if you only came into possession
last night?’
‘I know because I made the rule myself this morning, your Highness.’
‘But seriously, Miss Racksole, I want to talk to you.’
‘Do you want to talk to me as Prince Aribert or as the friend—the
acquaintance—whom I knew in Paris last year?’
‘As the friend, dear lady, if I may use the term.’
‘And you are sure that you would not like first to be conducted to your
apartments?’

‘Not yet. I will wait till Dimmock comes; he cannot fail to be here soon.’
‘Then we will have tea served in father’s private room—the proprietor’s
private room, you know.’
‘Good!’ he said.
Nella talked through a telephone, and rang several bells, and behaved
generally in a manner calculated to prove to Princes and to whomever it
might concern that she was a young woman of business instincts and
training, and then she stepped down from her chair of office, emerged from
the bureau, and, preceded by two menials, led Prince Aribert to the Louis
XV chamber in which her father and Felix Babylon had had their long
confabulation on the previous evening.
‘What do you want to talk to me about?’ she asked her companion, as she
poured out for him a second cup of tea. The Prince looked at her for a
moment as he took the proffered cup, and being a young man of sane,
healthy, instincts, he could think of nothing for the moment except her
loveliness.
Nella was indeed beautiful that afternoon. The beauty of even the most
beautiful woman ebbs and flows from hour to hour. Nella’s this afternoon
was at the flood. Vivacious, alert, imperious, and yet ineffably sweet, she
seemed to radiate the very joy and exuberance of life.
‘I have forgotten,’ he said.
‘You have forgotten! That is surely very wrong of you? You gave me to
understand that it was something terribly important. But of course I knew it
couldn’t be, because no man, and especially no Prince, ever discussed
anything really important with a woman.’
‘Recollect, Miss Racksole, that this afternoon, here, I am not the Prince.’
‘You are Count Steenbock, is that it?’
He started. ‘For you only,’ he said, unconsciously lowering his voice.
‘Miss Racksole, I particularly wish that no one here should know that I was
in Paris last spring.’
‘An affair of State?’ she smiled.
‘An affair of State,’ he replied soberly. ‘Even Dimmock doesn’t know. It
was strange that we should be fellow guests at that quiet out-of-the-way

hotel—strange but delightful. I shall never forget that rainy afternoon that
we spent together in the Museum of the Trocadéro. Let us talk about that.’
‘About the rain, or the museum?’
‘I shall never forget that afternoon,’ he repeated, ignoring the lightness of
her question.
‘Nor I,’ she murmured corresponding to his mood.
‘You, too enjoyed it?’ he said eagerly.
‘The sculptures were magnificent,’ she replied, hastily glancing at the
ceiling.
‘Ah! So they were! Tell me, Miss Racksole, how did you discover my
identity.’
‘I must not say,’ she answered. ‘That is my secret. Do not seek to
penetrate it. Who knows what horrors you might discover if you probed too
far?’ She laughed, but she laughed alone. The Prince remained pensive—as
it were brooding.
‘I never hoped to see you again,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘One never sees again those whom one wishes to see.’
‘As for me, I was perfectly convinced that we should meet again.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I always get what I want.’
‘Then you wanted to see me again?’
‘Certainly. You interested me extremely. I have never met another man
who could talk so well about sculpture as the Count Steenbock.’
‘Do you really always get what you want, Miss Racksole?’
‘Of course.’
‘That is because your father is so rich, I suppose?’
‘Oh, no, it isn’t!’ she said. ‘It’s simply because I always do get what I
want. It’s got nothing to do with Father at all.’
‘But Mr Racksole is extremely wealthy?’
‘Wealthy isn’t the word, Count. There is no word. It’s positively awful
the amount of dollars poor Papa makes. And the worst of it is he can’t help
it.

He told me once that when a man had made ten millions no power on
earth could stop those ten millions from growing into twenty. And so it
continues.
I spend what I can, but I can’t come near coping with it; and of course
Papa is no use whatever at spending.’
‘And you have no mother?’
‘Who told you I had no mother?’ she asked quietly.
‘I—er—inquired about you,’ he said, with equal candour and humility.
‘In spite of the fact that you never hoped to see me again?’
‘Yes, in spite of that.’
‘How funny!’ she said, and lapsed into a meditative silence.
‘Yours must be a wonderful existence,’ said the Prince. ‘I envy you.’
‘You envy me—what? My father’s wealth?’
‘No,’ he said; ‘your freedom and your responsibilities.’
‘I have no responsibilities,’ she remarked.
‘Pardon me,’ he said; ‘you have, and the time is coming when you will
feel them.’
‘I’m only a girl,’ she murmured with sudden simplicity. ‘As for you,
Count, surely you have sufficient responsibilities of your own?’
‘I?’ he said sadly. ‘I have no responsibilities. I am a nobody—a Serene
Highness who has to pretend to be very important, always taking immense
care never to do anything that a Serene Highness ought not to do. Bah!’
‘But if your nephew, Prince Eugen, were to die, would you not come to
the throne, and would you not then have these responsibilities which you so
much desire?’
‘Eugen die?’ said Prince Aribert, in a curious tone. ‘Impossible. He is the
perfection of health. In three months he will be married. No, I shall never be
anything but a Serene Highness, the most despicable of God’s creatures.’
‘But what about the State secret which you mentioned? Is not that a
responsibility?’
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘That is over. That belongs to the past. It was an accident in
my dull career. I shall never be Count Steenbock again.’

‘Who knows?’ she said. ‘By the way, is not Prince Eugen coming here to-
day? Mr Dimmock told us so.’
‘See!’ answered the Prince, standing up and bending over her. ‘I am
going to confide in you. I don’t know why, but I am.’
‘Don’t betray State secrets,’ she warned him, smiling into his face.
But just then the door of the room was unceremoniously opened.
‘Go right in,’ said a voice sharply. It was Theodore Racksole’s. Two men
entered, bearing a prone form on a stretcher, and Racksole followed them.
Nella sprang up. Racksole stared to see his daughter.
‘I didn’t know you were in here, Nell. Here,’ to the two men, ‘out again.’
‘Why!’ exclaimed Nella, gazing fearfully at the form on the stretcher,
‘it’s Mr Dimmock!’
‘It is,’ her father acquiesced. ‘He’s dead,’ he added laconically. ‘I’d have
broken it to you more gently had I known. Your pardon, Prince.’ There was
a pause.
‘Dimmock dead!’ Prince Aribert whispered under his breath, and he
kneeled down by the side of the stretcher. ‘What does this mean?’
The poor fellow was just walking across the quadrangle towards the
portico when he fell down. A commissionaire who saw him says he was
walking very quickly. At first I thought it was sunstroke, but it couldn’t
have been, though the weather certainly is rather warm. It must be heart
disease. But anyhow, he’s dead. We did what we could. I’ve sent for a
doctor, and for the police. I suppose there’ll have to be an inquest.’
Theodore Racksole stopped, and in an awkward solemn silence they all
gazed at the dead youth. His features were slightly drawn, and his eyes
closed; that was all. He might have been asleep.
‘My poor Dimmock!’ exclaimed the Prince, his voice broken. ‘And I was
angry because the lad did not meet me at Charing Cross!’
‘Are you sure he is dead, Father?’ Nella said.
‘You’d better go away, Nella,’ was Racksole’s only reply; but the girl
stood still, and began to sob quietly. On the previous night she had secretly
made fun of Reginald Dimmock. She had deliberately set herself to get
information from him on a topic in which she happened to be specially
interested and she had got it, laughing the while at his youthful crudities—

his vanity, his transparent cunning, his absurd airs. She had not liked him;
she had even distrusted him, and decided that he was not ‘nice’. But now, as
he lay on the stretcher, these things were forgotten. She went so far as to
reproach herself for them. Such is the strange commanding power of death.
‘Oblige me by taking the poor fellow to my apartments,’ said the Prince,
with a gesture to the attendants. ‘Surely it is time the doctor came.’
Racksole felt suddenly at that moment he was nothing but a mere hotel
proprietor with an awkward affair on his hands. For a fraction of a second
he wished he had never bought the Grand Babylon.
A quarter of an hour later Prince Aribert, Theodore Racksole, a doctor,
and an inspector of police were in the Prince’s reception-room. They had
just come from an ante-chamber, in which lay the mortal remains of
Reginald Dimmock.
‘Well?’ said Racksole, glancing at the doctor.
The doctor was a big, boyish-looking man, with keen, quizzical eyes.
‘It is not heart disease,’ said the doctor.
‘Not heart disease?’
‘No.’
‘Then what is it?’ asked the Prince.
‘I may be able to answer that question after the post-mortem,’ said the
doctor. ‘I certainly can’t answer it now. The symptoms are unusual to a
degree.’
The inspector of police began to write in a note-book.

Chapter Six IN THE GOLD ROOM
AT the Grand Babylon a great ball was given that night in the Gold
Room, a huge saloon attached to the hotel, though scarcely part of it, and
certainly less exclusive than the hotel itself. Theodore Racksole knew
nothing of the affair, except that it was an entertainment offered by a Mr
and Mrs Sampson Levi to their friends. Who Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi
were he did not know, nor could anyone tell him anything about them
except that Mr Sampson Levi was a prominent member of that part of the
Stock Exchange familiarly called the Kaffir Circus, and that his wife was a
stout lady with an aquiline nose and many diamonds, and that they were
very rich and very hospitable. Theodore Racksole did not want a ball in his
hotel that evening, and just before dinner he had almost a mind to issue a
decree that the Gold Room was to be closed and the ball forbidden, and Mr
and Mrs Sampson Levi might name the amount of damages suffered by
them. His reasons for such a course were threefold—first, he felt depressed
and uneasy; second, he didn’t like the name of Sampson Levi; and, third, he
had a desire to show these so-called plutocrats that their wealth was nothing
to him, that they could not do what they chose with Theodore Racksole, and
that for two pins Theodore Racksole would buy them up, and the whole
Kaffir Circus to boot. But something warned him that though such a high-
handed proceeding might be tolerated in America, that land of freedom, it
would never be tolerated in England. He felt instinctively that in England
there are things you can’t do, and that this particular thing was one of them.
So the ball went forward, and neither Mr nor Mrs Sampson Levi had ever
the least suspicion what a narrow escape they had had of looking very
foolish in the eyes of the thousand or so guests invited by them to the Gold
Room of the Grand Babylon that evening.
The Gold Room of the Grand Babylon was built for a ballroom. A
balcony, supported by arches faced with gilt and lapis-lazulo, ran around it,
and from this vantage men and maidens and chaperons who could not or
would not dance might survey the scene. Everyone knew this, and most
people took advantage of it. What everyone did not know—what no one
knew—was that higher up than the balcony there was a little barred window

in the end wall from which the hotel authorities might keep a watchful eye,
not only on the dancers, but on the occupants of the balcony itself.
It may seem incredible to the uninitiated that the guests at any social
gathering held in so gorgeous and renowned an apartment as the Gold
Room of the Grand Babylon should need the observation of a watchful eye.
Yet so it was. Strange matters and unexpected faces had been descried from
the little window, and more than one European detective had kept vigil
there with the most eminently satisfactory results.
At eleven o’clock Theodore Racksole, afflicted by vexation of spirit,
found himself gazing idly through the little barred window. Nella was with
him.
Together they had been wandering about the corridors of the hotel, still
strange to them both, and it was quite by accident that they had lighted upon
the small room which had a surreptitious view of Mr and Mrs Sampson
Levi’s ball. Except for the light of the chandelier of the ball-room the little
cubicle was in darkness. Nella was looking through the window; her father
stood behind.
‘I wonder which is Mrs Sampson Levi?’ Nella said, ‘and whether she
matches her name. Wouldn’t you love to have a name like that, Father—
something that people could take hold of—instead of Racksole?’
The sound of violins and a confused murmur of voices rose gently up to
them.
‘Umphl’ said Theodore. ‘Curse those evening papers!’ he added,
inconsequently but with sincerity.
‘Father, you’re very horrid to-night. What have the evening papers been
doing?’
‘Well, my young madame, they’ve got me in for one, and you for
another; and they’re manufacturing mysteries like fun. It’s young
Dimmock’s death that has started ‘em.’
‘Well, Father, you surely didn’t expect to keep yourself out of the papers.
Besides, as regards newspapers, you ought to be glad you aren’t in New
York. Just fancy what the dear old Herald would have made out of a little
transaction like yours of last night.’
‘That’s true,’ assented Racksole. ‘But it’ll be all over New York to-
morrow morning, all the same. The worst of it is that Babylon has gone off

to Switzerland.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t know. Sudden fancy, I guess, for his native heath.’
‘What difference does it make to you?’
‘None. Only I feel sort of lonesome. I feel I want someone to lean up
against in running this hotel.’
‘Father, if you have that feeling you must be getting ill.’
‘Yes,’ he sighed, ‘I admit it’s unusual with me. But perhaps you haven’t
grasped the fact, Nella, that we’re in the middle of a rather queer business.’
‘You mean about poor Mr Dimmock?’
‘Partly Dimmock and partly other things. First of all, that Miss Spencer,
or whatever her wretched name is, mysteriously disappears. Then there was
the stone thrown into your bedroom. Then I caught that rascal Jules
conspiring with Dimmock at three o’clock in the morning. Then your
precious Prince Aribert arrives without any suite—which I believe is a most
peculiar and wicked thing for a Prince to do—and moreover I find my
daughter on very intimate terms with the said Prince. Then young Dimmock
goes and dies, and there is to be an inquest; then Prince Eugen and his suite,
who were expected here for dinner, fail to turn up at all—’
‘Prince Eugen has not come?’
‘He has not; and Uncle Aribert is in a deuce of a stew about him, and
telegraphing all over Europe. Altogether, things are working up pretty
lively.’
‘Do you really think, Dad, there was anything between Jules and poor Mr
Dimmock?’
‘Think! I know! I tell you I saw that scamp give Dimmock a wink last
night at dinner that might have meant—well!’
‘So you caught that wink, did you, Dad?’
‘Why, did you?’
‘Of course, Dad. I was going to tell you about it.’
The millionaire grunted.
‘Look here, Father,’ Nella whispered suddenly, and pointed to the
balcony immediately below them. ‘Who’s that?’ She indicated a man with a

bald patch on the back of his head, who was propping himself up against
the railing of the balcony and gazing immovable into the ball-room.
‘Well, who is it?’
‘Isn’t it Jules?’
‘Gemini! By the beard of the prophet, it is!’
‘Perhaps Mr Jules is a guest of Mrs Sampson Levi.’
‘Guest or no guest, he goes out of this hotel, even if I have to throw him
out myself.’
Theodore Racksole disappeared without another word, and Nella
followed him.
But when the millionaire arrived on the balcony floor he could see
nothing of Jules, neither there nor in the ball-room itself. Saying no word
aloud, but quietly whispering wicked expletives, he searched everywhere in
vain, and then, at last, by tortuous stairways and corridors returned to his
original post of observation, that he might survey the place anew from the
vantage ground. To his surprise he found a man in the dark little room,
watching the scene of the ball as intently as he himself had been doing a
few minutes before. Hearing footsteps, the man turned with a start.
It was Jules.
The two exchanged glances in the half light for a second.
‘Good evening, Mr Racksole,’ said Jules calmly. ‘I must apologize for
being here.’
‘Force of habit, I suppose,’ said Theodore Racksole drily.
‘Just so, sir.’
‘I fancied I had forbidden you to re-enter this hotel?’
‘I thought your order applied only to my professional capacity. I am here
to-night as the guest of Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi.’
‘In your new rôle of man-about-town, eh?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But I don’t allow men-about-town up here, my friend.’
‘For being up here I have already apologized.’
‘Then, having apologized, you had better depart; that is my disinterested
advice to you.’

‘Good night, sir.’
‘And, I say, Mr Jules, if Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi, or any other
Hebrews or Christians, should again invite you to my hotel you will oblige
me by declining the invitation. You’ll find that will be the safest course for
you.’
‘Good night, sir.’
Before midnight struck Theodore Racksole had ascertained that the
invitation-list of Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi, though a somewhat lengthy
one, contained no reference to any such person as Jules.
He sat up very late. To be precise, he sat up all night. He was a man who,
by dint of training, could comfortably dispense with sleep when he felt so
inclined, or when circumstances made such a course advisable. He walked
to and fro in his room, and cogitated as few people beside Theodore
Racksole could cogitate. At 6 a.m. he took a stroll round the business part of
his premises, and watched the supplies come in from Covent Garden, from
Smithfield, from Billingsgate, and from other strange places. He found the
proceedings of the kitchen department quite interesting, and made mental
notes of things that he would have altered, of men whose wages he would
increase and men whose wages he would reduce. At 7 a.m. he happened to
be standing near the luggage lift, and witnessed the descent of vast
quantities of luggage, and its disappearance into a Carter Paterson van.
‘Whose luggage is that?’ he inquired peremptorily.
The luggage clerk, with an aggrieved expression, explained to him that it
was the luggage of nobody in particular, that it belonged to various guests,
and was bound for various destinations; that it was, in fact, ‘expressed’
luggage despatched in advance, and that a similar quantity of it left the
hotel every morning about that hour.
Theodore Racksole walked away, and breakfasted upon one cup of tea
and half a slice of toast.
At ten o’clock he was informed that the inspector of police desired to see
him. The inspector had come, he said, to superintend the removal of the
body of Reginald Dimmock to the mortuary adjoining the place of inquest,
and a suitable vehicle waited at the back entrance of the hotel.
The inspector had also brought subpoenas for himself and Prince Aribert
of Posen and the commissionaire to attend the inquest.

‘I thought Mr Dimmock’s remains were removed last night,’ said
Racksole wearily.
‘No, sir. The fact is the van was engaged on another job.’
The inspector gave the least hint of a professional smile, and Racksole,
disgusted, told him curtly to go and perform his duties.
In a few minutes a message came from the inspector requesting Mr
Racksole to be good enough to come to him on the first floor. Racksole
went. In the ante-room, where the body of Reginald Dimmock had
originally been placed, were the inspector and Prince Aribert, and two
policemen.
‘Well?’ said Racksole, after he and the Prince had exchanged bows. Then
he saw a coffin laid across two chairs. ‘I see a coffin has been obtained,’ he
remarked. ‘Quite right’ He approached it. ‘It’s empty,’ he observed
unthinkingly.
‘Just so,’ said the inspector. ‘The body of the deceased has disappeared.
And his Serene Highness Prince Aribert informs me that though he has
occupied a room immediately opposite, on the other side of the corridor, he
can throw no light on the affair.’
‘Indeed, I cannot!’ said the Prince, and though he spoke with sufficient
calmness and dignity, you could see that he was deeply pained, even
distressed.
‘Well, I’m—’ murmured Racksole, and stopped.

Chapter Seven NELLA AND THE PRINCE
IT appeared impossible to Theodore Racksole that so cumbrous an article
as a corpse could be removed out of his hotel, with no trace, no hint, no clue
as to the time or the manner of the performance of the deed. After the first
feeling of surprise, Racksole grew coldly and severely angry. He had a
mind to dismiss the entire staff of the hotel. He personally examined the
night-watchman, the chambermaids and all other persons who by chance
might or ought to know something of the affair; but without avail. The
corpse of Reginald Dimmock had vanished utterly—disappeared like a
fleshless spirit.
Of course there were the police. But Theodore Racksole held the police
in sorry esteem. He acquainted them with the facts, answered their queries
with a patient weariness, and expected nothing whatever from that quarter.
He also had several interviews with Prince Aribert of Posen, but though the
Prince was suavity itself and beyond doubt genuinely concerned about the
fate of his dead attendant, yet it seemed to Racksole that he was keeping
something back, that he hesitated to say all he knew. Racksole, with
characteristic insight, decided that the death of Reginald Dimmock was
only a minor event, which had occurred, as it were, on the fringe of some
far more profound mystery. And, therefore, he decided to wait, with his
eyes very wide open, until something else happened that would throw light
on the business. At the moment he took only one measure—he arranged that
the theft of Dimmock’s body should not appear in the newspapers. It is
astonishing how well a secret can be kept, when the possessors of the secret
are handled with the proper mixture of firmness and persuasion. Racksole
managed this very neatly. It was a complicated job, and his success in it
rather pleased him.
At the same time he was conscious of being temporarily worsted by an
unknown group of schemers, in which he felt convinced that Jules was an
important item. He could scarcely look Nella in the eyes. The girl had
evidently expected him to unmask this conspiracy at once, with a single
stroke of the millionaire’s magic wand. She was thoroughly accustomed, in
the land of her birth, to seeing him achieve impossible feats. Over there he

was a ‘boss’; men trembled before his name; when he wished a thing to
happen—well, it happened; if he desired to know a thing, he just knew it.
But here, in London, Theodore Racksole was not quite the same Theodore
Racksole. He dominated New York; but London, for the most part, seemed
not to take much interest in him; and there were certainly various persons in
London who were capable of snapping their fingers at him—at Theodore
Racksole. Neither he nor his daughter could get used to that fact.
As for Nella, she concerned herself for a little with the ordinary business
of the bureau, and watched the incomings and outgoings of Prince Aribert
with a kindly interest. She perceived, what her father had failed to perceive,
that His Highness had assumed an attitude of reserve merely to hide the
secret distraction and dismay which consumed him. She saw that the poor
fellow had no settled plan in his head, and that he was troubled by
something which, so far, he had confided to nobody. It came to her
knowledge that each morning he walked to and fro on the Victoria
Embankment, alone, and apparently with no object. On the third morning
she decided that driving exercise on the Embankment would be good for
her health, and thereupon ordered a carriage and issued forth, arrayed in a
miraculous putty-coloured gown. Near Blackfriars Bridge she met the
Prince, and the carriage was drawn up by the pavement.
‘Good morning, Prince,’ she greeted him. ‘Are you mistaking this for
Hyde Park?’
He bowed and smiled.
‘I usually walk here in the mornings,’ he said.
‘You surprise me,’ she returned. ‘I thought I was the only person in
London who preferred the Embankment, with this view of the river, to the
dustiness of Hyde Park. I can’t imagine how it is that London will never
take exercise anywhere except in that ridiculous Park. Now, if they had
Central Park—’
‘I think the Embankment is the finest spot in all London,’ he said.
She leaned a little out of the landau, bringing her face nearer to his.
‘I do believe we are kindred spirits, you and I,’ she murmured; and then,
‘Au revoir, Prince!’
‘One moment, Miss Racksole.’ His quick tones had a note of entreaty.

‘I am in a hurry,’ she fibbed; ‘I am not merely taking exercise this
morning. You have no idea how busy we are.’
‘Ah! then I will not trouble you. But I leave the Grand Babylon to-night.’
‘Do you?’ she said. ‘Then will your Highness do me the honour of
lunching with me today in Father’s room? Father will be out—he is having
a day in the City with some stockbroking persons.’
‘I shall be charmed,’ said the Prince, and his face showed that he meant
it.
Nella drove off.
If the lunch was a success that result was due partly to Rocco, and partly
to Nella. The Prince said little beyond what the ordinary rules of the
conversational game demanded. His hostess talked much and talked well,
but she failed to rouse her guest. When they had had coffee he took a rather
formal leave of her.
‘Good-bye, Prince,’ she said, ‘but I thought—that is, no I didn’t.
Good-bye.’
‘You thought I wished to discuss something with you. I did; but I have
decided that I have no right to burden your mind with my affairs.’
‘But suppose—suppose I wish to be burdened?’
‘That is your good nature.’
‘Sit down,’ she said abruptly, ‘and tell me everything; mind, everything. I
adore secrets.’
Almost before he knew it he was talking to her, rapidly, eagerly.
‘Why should I weary you with my confidences?’ he said. ‘I don’t know, I
cannot tell; but I feel that I must. I feel that you will understand me better
than anyone else in the world. And yet why should you understand me?
Again, I don’t know. Miss Racksole, I will disclose to you the whole trouble
in a word. Prince Eugen, the hereditary Grand Duke of Posen, has
disappeared. Four days ago I was to have met him at Ostend. He had affairs
in London. He wished me to come with him. I sent Dimmock on in front,
and waited for Eugen. He did not arrive. I telegraphed back to Cologne, his
last stopping-place, and I learned that he had left there in accordance with
his programme; I learned also that he had passed through Brussels. It must
have been between Brussels and the railway station at Ostend Quay that he

disappeared. He was travelling with a single equerry, and the equerry, too,
has vanished. I need not explain to you, Miss Racksole, that when a person
of the importance of my nephew contrives to get lost one must proceed
cautiously. One cannot advertise for him in the London Times. Such a
disappearance must be kept secret. The people at Posen and at Berlin
believe that Eugen is in London, here, at this hotel; or, rather, they did so
believe. But this morning I received a cypher telegram from—from His
Majesty the Emperor, a very peculiar telegram, asking when Eugen might
be expected to return to Posen, and requesting that he should go first to
Berlin. That telegram was addressed to myself. Now, if the Emperor
thought that Eugen was here, why should he have caused the telegram to be
addressed to me? I have hesitated for three days, but I can hesitate no
longer. I must myself go to the Emperor and acquaint him with the facts.’
‘I suppose you’ve just got to keep straight with him?’ Nella was on the
point of saying, but she checked herself and substituted, ‘The Emperor is
your chief, is he not? “First among equals”, you call him.’
‘His Majesty is our over-lord,’ said Aribert quietly.
‘Why do you not take immediate steps to inquire as to the whereabouts of
your Royal nephew?’ she asked simply. The affair seemed to her just then
so plain and straightforward.
‘Because one of two things may have happened. Either Eugen may have
been, in plain language, abducted, or he may have had his own reasons for
changing his programme and keeping in the background—out of reach of
telegraph and post and railways.’
‘What sort of reasons?’
‘Do not ask me. In the history of every family there are passages—’ He
stopped.
‘And what was Prince Eugen’s object in coming to London?’
Aribert hesitated.
‘Money,’ he said at length. ‘As a family we are very poor—poorer than
anyone in Berlin suspects.’
‘Prince Aribert,’ Nella said, ‘shall I tell you what I think?’ She leaned
back in her chair, and looked at him out of half-closed eyes. His pale, thin,
distinguished face held her gaze as if by some fascination. There could be
no mistaking this man for anything else but a Prince.

‘If you will,’ he said.
‘Prince Eugen is the victim of a plot.’
‘You think so?’
‘I am perfectly convinced of it.’
‘But why? What can be the object of a plot against him?’
‘That is a point of which you should know more than me,’ she remarked
drily.
‘Ah! Perhaps, perhaps,’ he said. ‘But, dear Miss Racksole, why are you
so sure?’
‘There are several reasons, and they are connected with Mr Dimmock.
Did you ever suspect, your Highness, that that poor young man was not
entirely loyal to you?’
‘He was absolutely loyal,’ said the Prince, with all the earnestness of
conviction.
‘A thousand pardons, but he was not.’
‘Miss Racksole, if any other than yourself made that assertion, I would—
I would—’
‘Consign them to the deepest dungeon in Posen?’ she laughed, lightly.
‘Listen.’ And she told him of the incidents which had occurred in the
night preceding his arrival in the hotel.
‘Do you mean, Miss Racksole, that there was an understanding between
poor Dimmock and this fellow Jules?’
‘There was an understanding.’
‘Impossible!’
‘Your Highness, the man who wishes to probe a mystery to its root never
uses the word “impossible”. But I will say this for young Mr Dimmock. I
think he repented, and I think that it was because he repented that he—er—
died so suddenly, and that his body was spirited away.’
‘Why has no one told me these things before?’ Aribert exclaimed.
‘Princes seldom hear the truth,’ she said.
He was astonished at her coolness, her firmness of assertion, her air of
complete acquaintance with the world.

‘Miss Racksole,’ he said, ‘if you will permit me to say it, I have never in
my life met a woman like you. May I rely on your sympathy—your
support?’
‘My support, Prince? But how?’
‘I do not know,’ he replied. ‘But you could help me if you would. A
woman, when she has brain, always has more brain than a man.’
‘Ah!’ she said ruefully, ‘I have no brains, but I do believe I could help
you.’
What prompted her to make that assertion she could not have explained,
even to herself. But she made it, and she had a suspicion—a prescience—
that it would be justified, though by what means, through what good
fortune, was still a mystery to her.
‘Go to Berlin,’ she said. ‘I see that you must do that; you have no
alternative. As for the rest, we shall see. Something will occur. I shall be
here. My father will be here. You must count us as your friends.’
He kissed her hand when he left, and afterwards, when she was alone,
she kissed the spot his lips had touched again and again. Now, thinking the
matter out in the calmness of solitude, all seemed strange, unreal, uncertain
to her. Were conspiracies actually possible nowadays? Did queer things
actually happen in Europe? And did they actually happen in London hotels?
She dined with her father that night.
‘I hear Prince Aribert has left,’ said Theodore Racksole.
‘Yes,’ she assented. She said not a word about their interview.

Chapter Eight ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF
THE BARONESS
ON the following morning, just before lunch, a lady, accompanied by a
maid and a considerable quantity of luggage, came to the Grand Babylon
Hôtel. She was a plump, little old lady, with white hair and an old-fashioned
bonnet, and she had a quaint, simple smile of surprise at everything in
general.
Nevertheless, she gave the impression of belonging to some aristocracy,
though not the English aristocracy. Her tone to her maid, whom she
addressed in broken English—the girl being apparently English—was
distinctly insolent, with the calm, unconscious insolence peculiar to a
certain type of Continental nobility. The name on the lady’s card ran thus:
‘Baroness Zerlinski’. She desired rooms on the third floor. It happened that
Nella was in the bureau.
‘On the third floor, madam?’ questioned Nella, in her best clerkly
manner.
‘I did say on de tird floor,’ said the plump little old lady.
‘We have accommodation on the second floor.’
‘I wish to be high up, out of de dust and in de light,’ explained the
Baroness.
‘We have no suites on the third floor, madam.’
‘Never mind, no mattaire! Have you not two rooms that communicate?’
Nella consulted her books, rather awkwardly.
‘Numbers 122 and 123 communicate.’
‘Or is it 121 and 122?’ the little old lady remarked quickly, and then bit
her lip.
‘I beg your pardon. I should have said 121 and 122.’
At the moment Nella regarded the Baroness’s correction of her figures as
a curious chance, but afterwards, when the Baroness had ascended in the
lift, the thing struck her as somewhat strange. Perhaps the Baroness

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

Nella departed. She had noticed one trifling thing besides the paper—
namely, that the Baroness could pronounce the English ‘th’ sound if she
chose.
That afternoon, in her own room, Nella sat meditating at the window for
long time, and then she suddenly sprang up, her eyes brightening.
‘I know,’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands. ‘It’s Miss Spencer,
disguised!
Why didn’t I think of that before?’ Her thoughts ran instantly to Prince
Aribert. ‘Perhaps I can help him,’ she said to herself, and gave a little sigh.
She went down to the office and inquired whether the Baroness had given
any instructions about dinner. She felt that some plan must be formulated.
She wanted to get hold of Rocco, and put him in the rack. She knew now
that Rocco, the unequalled, was also concerned in this mysterious affair.
‘The Baroness Zerlinski has left, about a quarter of an hour ago,’ said the
attendant.
‘But she only arrived this morning.’
‘The Baroness’s maid said that her mistress had received a telegram and
must leave at once. The Baroness paid the bill, and went away in a four-
wheeler.’
‘Where to?’
‘The trunks were labelled for Ostend.’
Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps it was the mere spirit of adventure; but
that evening Nella was to be seen of all men on the steamer for Ostend
which leaves Dover at 11 p.m. She told no one of her intentions—not even
her father, who was not in the hotel when she left. She had scribbled a brief
note to him to expect her back in a day or two, and had posted this at Dover.
The steamer was the Marie Henriette, a large and luxurious boat, whose
state-rooms on deck vie with the glories of the Cunard and White Star
liners. One of these state-rooms, the best, was evidently occupied, for every
curtain of its windows was carefully drawn. Nella did not hope that the
Baroness was on board; it was quite possible for the Baroness to have
caught the eight o’clock steamer, and it was also possible for the Baroness
not to have gone to Ostend at all, but to some other place in an entirely
different direction. Nevertheless, Nella had a faint hope that the lady who
called herself Zerlinski might be in that curtained stateroom, and throughout

the smooth moonlit voyage she never once relaxed her observation of its
doors and its windows.
The Maria Henriette arrived in Ostend Harbour punctually at 2 a.m. in
the morning. There was the usual heterogeneous, gesticulating crowd on the
quay.
Nella kept her post near the door of the state-room, and at length she was
rewarded by seeing it open. Four middle-aged Englishmen issued from it.
From a glimpse of the interior Nella saw that they had spent the voyage in
card-playing.
It would not be too much to say that she was distinctly annoyed. She
pretended to be annoyed with circumstances, but really she was annoyed
with Nella Racksole. At two in the morning, without luggage, without any
companionship, and without a plan of campaign, she found herself in a
strange foreign port—a port of evil repute, possessing some of the worst-
managed hotels in Europe. She strolled on the quay for a few minutes, and
then she saw the smoke of another steamer in the offing. She inquired from
an official what that steamer might be, and was told that it was the eight
o’clock from Dover, which had broken down, put into Calais for some
slight necessary repairs, and was arriving at its destination nearly four hours
late. Her mercurial spirits rose again. A minute ago she was regarding
herself as no better than a ninny engaged in a wild-goose chase. Now she
felt that after all she had been very sagacious and cunning. She was morally
sure that she would find the Zerlinski woman on this second steamer, and
she took all the credit to herself in advance. Such is human nature.
The steamer seemed interminably slow in coming into harbour. Nella
walked on the Digue for a few minutes to watch it the better. The town was
silent and almost deserted. It had a false and sinister aspect. She
remembered tales which she had heard of this glittering resort, which in the
season holds more scoundrels than any place in Europe, save only Monte
Carlo. She remembered that the gilded adventurers of every nation under
the sun forgathered there either for business or pleasure, and that some of
the most wonderful crimes of the latter half of the century had been
schemed and matured in that haunt of cosmopolitan iniquity.
When the second steamer arrived Nella stood at the end of the gangway,
close to the ticket-collector. The first person to step on shore was—not the
Baroness Zerlinski, but Miss Spencer herself! Nella turned aside instantly,

hiding her face, and Miss Spencer, carrying a small bag, hurried with
assured footsteps to the Custom House. It seemed as if she knew the port of
Ostend fairly well. The moon shone like day, and Nella had full opportunity
to observe her quarry. She could see now quite plainly that the Baroness
Zerlinski had been only Miss Spencer in disguise. There was the same gait,
the same movement of the head and of the hips; the white hair was easily to
be accounted for by a wig, and the wrinkles by a paint brush and some
grease paints. Miss Spencer, whose hair was now its old accustomed
yellow, got through the Custom House without difficulty, and Nella saw her
call a closed carriage and say something to the driver. The vehicle drove off.
Nella jumped into the next carriage—an open one—that came up.
‘Follow that carriage,’ she said succinctly to the driver in French.
‘Bien, madame!’ The driver whipped up his horse, and the animal shot
forward with a terrific clatter over the cobbles. It appeared that this driver
was quite accustomed to following other carriages.
‘Now I am fairly in for it!’ said Nella to herself. She laughed unsteadily,
but her heart was beating with an extraordinary thump.
For some time the pursued vehicle kept well in front. It crossed the town
nearly from end to end, and plunged into a maze of small streets far on the
south side of the Kursaal. Then gradually Nella’s equipage began to
overtake it. The first carriage stopped with a jerk before a tall dark house,
and Miss Spencer emerged. Nella called to her driver to stop, but he,
determined to be in at the death, was engaged in whipping his horse, and he
completely ignored her commands. He drew up triumphantly at the tall dark
house just at the moment when Miss Spencer disappeared into it. The other
carriage drove away. Nella, uncertain what to do, stepped down from her
carriage and gave the driver some money. At the same moment a man
reopened the door of the house, which had closed on Miss Spencer.
‘I want to see Miss Spencer,’ said Nella impulsively. She couldn’t think
of anything else to say.
‘Miss Spencer?’
‘Yes; she’s just arrived.’
‘It’s O.K., I suppose,’ said the man.
‘I guess so,’ said Nella, and she walked past him into the house. She was
astonished at her own audacity.

Miss Spencer was just going into a room off the narrow hall. Nella
followed her into the apartment, which was shabbily furnished in the
Belgian lodging-house style.
‘Well, Miss Spencer,’ she greeted the former Baroness Zerlinski, ‘I guess
you didn’t expect to see me. You left our hotel very suddenly this afternoon,
and you left it very suddenly a few days ago; and so I’ve just called to make
a few inquiries.’
To do the lady justice, Miss Spencer bore the surprising ordeal very well.
She did not flinch; she betrayed no emotion. The sole sign of perturbation
was in her hurried breathing.
‘You have ceased to be the Baroness Zerlinski,’ Nella continued. ‘May I
sit down?’
‘Certainly, sit down,’ said Miss Spencer, copying the girl’s tone. ‘You are
a fairly smart young woman, that I will say. What do you want? Weren’t my
books all straight?’
‘Your books were all straight. I haven’t come about your books. I have
come about the murder of Reginald Dimmock, the disappearance of his
corpse, and the disappearance of Prince Eugen of Posen. I thought you
might be able to help me in some investigations which I am making.’
Miss Spencer’s eyes gleamed, and she stood up and moved swiftly to the
mantelpiece.
‘You may be a Yankee, but you’re a fool,’ she said.
She took hold of the bell-rope.
‘Don’t ring that bell if you value your life,’ said Nella.
‘If what?’ Miss Spencer remarked.
‘If you value your life,’ said Nella calmly, and with the words she pulled
from her pocket a very neat and dainty little revolver.

Chapter Nine TWO WOMEN AND THE
REVOLVER
‘YOU—you’re only doing that to frighten me,’ stammered Miss Spencer,
in a low, quavering voice.
‘Am I?’ Nella replied, as firmly as she could, though her hand shook
violently with excitement, could Miss Spencer but have observed it. ‘Am I?
You said just now that I might be a Yankee girl, but I was a fool. Well, I am
a Yankee girl, as you call it; and in my country, if they don’t teach revolver-
shooting in boarding-schools, there are at least a lot of girls who can handle
a revolver. I happen to be one of them. I tell you that if you ring that bell
you will suffer.’
Most of this was simple bluff on Nella’s part, and she trembled lest Miss
Spencer should perceive that it was simple bluff. Happily for her, Miss
Spencer belonged to that order of women who have every sort of courage
except physical courage. Miss Spencer could have withstood successfully
any moral trial, but persuade her that her skin was in danger, and she would
succumb. Nella at once divined this useful fact, and proceeded accordingly,
hiding the strangeness of her own sensations as well as she could.
‘You had better sit down now,’ said Nella, ‘and I will ask you a few
questions.’
And Miss Spencer obediently sat down, rather white, and trying to screw
her lips into a formal smile.
‘Why did you leave the Grand Babylon that night?’ Nella began her
examination, putting on a stern, barrister-like expression.
‘I had orders to, Miss Racksole.’
‘Whose orders?’
‘Well, I’m—I’m—the fact is, I’m a married woman, and it was my
husband’s orders.’
‘Who is your husband?’
‘Tom Jackson—Jules, you know, head waiter at the Grand Babylon.’

‘So Jules’s real name is Tom Jackson? Why did he want you to leave
without giving notice?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, Miss Racksole. I swear I don’t know. He’s my
husband, and, of course, I do what he tells me, as you will some day do
what your husband tells you. Please heaven you’ll get a better husband than
mine!’
Miss Spencer showed a sign of tears.
Nella fingered the revolver, and put it at full cock. ‘Well,’ she repeated,
‘why did he want you to leave?’ She was tremendously surprised at her own
coolness, and somewhat pleased with it, too.
‘I can’t tell you, I can’t tell you.’
‘You’ve just got to,’ Nella said, in a terrible, remorseless tone.
‘He—he wished me to come over here to Ostend. Something had gone
wrong.
Oh! he’s a fearful man, is Tom. If I told you, he’d—’
‘Had something gone wrong in the hotel, or over here?’
‘Both.’
‘Was it about Prince Eugen of Posen?’
‘I don’t know—that is, yes, I think so.’
‘What has your husband to do with Prince Eugen?’
‘I believe he has some—some sort of business with him, some money
business.’
‘And was Mr Dimmock in this business?’
‘I fancy so, Miss Racksole. I’m telling you all I know, that I swear.’
‘Did your husband and Mr Dimmock have a quarrel that night in Room
111?’
‘They had some difficulty.’
‘And the result of that was that you came to Ostend instantly?’
‘Yes; I suppose so.’
‘And what were you to do in Ostend? What were your instructions from
this husband of yours?’
Miss Spencer’s head dropped on her arms on the table which separated
her from Nella, and she appeared to sob violently.

‘Have pity on me,’ she murmured, ‘I can’t tell you any more.’
‘Why?’
‘He’d kill me if he knew.’
‘You’re wandering from the subject,’ observed Nella coldly. ‘This is the
last time I shall warn you. Let me tell you plainly I’ve got the best reasons
for being desperate, and if anything happens to you I shall say I did it in
self-defence. Now, what were you to do in Ostend?’
‘I shall die for this anyhow,’ whined Miss Spencer, and then, with a sort
of fierce despair, ‘I had to keep watch on Prince Eugen.’
‘Where? In this house?’
Miss Spencer nodded, and, looking up, Nella could see the traces of tears
in her face.
‘Then Prince Eugen was a prisoner? Some one had captured him at the
instigation of Jules?’
‘Yes, if you must have it.’
‘Why was it necessary for you specially to come to Ostend?’
‘Oh! Tom trusts me. You see, I know Ostend. Before I took that place at
the Grand Babylon I had travelled over Europe, and Tom knew that I knew
a thing or two.’
‘Why did you take the place at the Grand Babylon?’
‘Because Tom told me to. He said I should be useful to him there.’
‘Is your husband an Anarchist, or something of that kind, Miss Spencer?’
‘I don’t know. I’d tell you in a minute if I knew. But he’s one of those
that keep themselves to themselves.’
‘Do you know if he has ever committed a murder?’
‘Never!’ said Miss Spencer, with righteous repudiation of the mere idea.
‘But Mr Dimmock was murdered. He was poisoned. If he had not been
poisoned why was his body stolen? It must have been stolen to prevent
inquiry, to hide traces. Tell me about that.’
‘I take my dying oath,’ said Miss Spencer, standing up a little way from
the table, ‘I take my dying oath I didn’t know Mr Dimmock was dead till I
saw it in the newspaper.’
‘You swear you had no suspicion of it?’

‘I swear I hadn’t.’
Nella was inclined to believe the statement. The woman and the girl
looked at each other in the tawdry, frowsy, lamp-lit room. Miss Spencer
nervously patted her yellow hair into shape, as if gradually recovering her
composure and equanimity. The whole affair seemed like a dream to Nella,
a disturbing, sinister nightmare. She was a little uncertain what to say. She
felt that she had not yet got hold of any very definite information. ‘Where is
Prince Eugen now?’ she asked at length.
‘I don’t know, miss.’
‘He isn’t in this house?’
‘No, miss.’
‘Ah! We will see presently.’
‘They took him away, Miss Racksole.’
‘Who took him away? Some of your husband’s friends?’
‘Some of his—acquaintances.’
‘Then there is a gang of you?’
‘A gang of us—a gang! I don’t know what you mean,’ Miss Spencer
quavered.
‘Oh, but you must know,’ smiled Nella calmly. ‘You can’t possibly be so
innocent as all that, Mrs Tom Jackson. You can’t play games with me.
You’ve just got to remember that I’m what you call a Yankee girl. There’s
one thing that I mean to find out, within the next five minutes, and that is—
how your charming husband kidnapped Prince Eugen, and why he
kidnapped him. Let us begin with the second question. You have evaded it
once.’
Miss Spencer looked into Nella’s face, and then her eyes dropped, and
her fingers worked nervously with the tablecloth.
‘How can I tell you,’ she said, ‘when I don’t know? You’ve got the whip-
hand of me, and you’re tormenting me for your own pleasure.’ She wore an
expression of persecuted innocence.
‘Did Mr Tom Jackson want to get some money out of Prince Eugen?’
‘Money! Not he! Tom’s never short of money.’
‘But I mean a lot of money—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands?’

‘Tom never wanted money from anyone,’ said Miss Spencer doggedly.
‘Then had he some reason for wishing to prevent Prince Eugen from
coming to London?’
‘Perhaps he had. I don’t know. If you kill me, I don’t know.’ Nella
stopped to reflect. Then she raised the revolver. It was a mechanical,
unintentional sort of action, and certainly she had no intention of using the
weapon, but, strange to say, Miss Spencer again cowered before it. Even at
that moment Nella wondered that a woman like Miss Spencer could be so
simple as to think the revolver would actually be used. Having absolutely
no physical cowardice herself, Nella had the greatest difficulty in imagining
that other people could be at the mercy of a bodily fear. Still, she saw her
advantage, and used it relentlessly, and with as much theatrical gesture as
she could command. She raised the revolver till it was level with Miss
Spencer’s face, and suddenly a new, queer feeling took hold of her. She
knew that she would indeed use that revolver now, if the miserable woman
before her drove her too far. She felt afraid—afraid of herself; she was in
the grasp of a savage, primeval instinct. In a flash she saw Miss Spencer
dead at her feet—the police—a court of justice—the scaffold. It was
horrible.
‘Speak,’ she said hoarsely, and Miss Spencer’s face went whiter.
‘Tom did say,’ the woman whispered rapidly, awesomely, ‘that if Prince
Eugen got to London it would upset his scheme.’
‘What scheme? What scheme? Answer me.’
‘Heaven help me, I don’t know.’ Miss Spencer sank into a chair. ‘He said
Mr Dimmock had turned tail, and he should have to settle him and then
Rocco—’
‘Rocco! What about Rocco?’ Nella could scarcely hear herself. Her grip
of the revolver tightened.
Miss Spencer’s eyes opened wider; she gazed at Nella with a glassy stare.
‘Don’t ask me. It’s death!’ Her eyes were fixed as if in horror.
‘It is,’ said Nella, and the sound of her voice seemed to her to issue from
the lips of some third person.
‘It’s death,’ repeated Miss Spencer, and gradually her head and shoulders
sank back, and hung loosely over the chair. Nella was conscious of a sudden
revulsion. The woman had surely fainted. Dropping the revolver she ran

round the table. She was herself again—feminine, sympathetic, the old
Nella. She felt immensely relieved that this had happened. But at the same
instant Miss Spencer sprang up from the chair like a cat, seized the revolver,
and with a wild movement of the arm flung it against the window. It
crashed through the glass, exploding as it went, and there was a tense
silence.
‘I told you that you were a fool,’ remarked Miss Spencer slowly, ‘coming
here like a sort of female Jack Sheppard, and trying to get the best of me.
We are on equal terms now. You frightened me, but I knew I was a
cleverer woman than you, and that in the end, if I kept on long enough, I
should win.
Now it will be my turn.’
Dumbfounded, and overcome with a miserable sense of the truth of Miss
Spencer’s words, Nella stood still. The idea of her colossal foolishness
swept through her like a flood. She felt almost ashamed. But even at this
juncture she had no fear. She faced the woman bravely, her mind leaping
about in search of some plan. She could think of nothing but a bribe—an
enormous bribe.
‘I admit you’ve won,’ she said, ‘but I’ve not finished yet. Just listen.’
Miss Spencer folded her arms, and glanced at the door, smiling bitterly.
‘You know my father is a millionaire; perhaps you know that he is one of
the richest men in the world. If I give you my word of honour not to reveal
anything that you’ve told me, what will you take to let me go free?’
‘What sum do you suggest?’ asked Miss Spencer carelessly.
‘Twenty thousand pounds,’ said Nella promptly. She had begun to regard
the affair as a business operation.
Miss Spencer’s lip curled.
‘A hundred thousand.’
Again Miss Spencer’s lip curled.
‘Well, say a million. I can rely on my father, and so may you.’
‘You think you are worth a million to him?’
‘I do,’ said Nella.
‘And you think we could trust you to see that it was paid?’

‘Of course you could.’
‘And we should not suffer afterwards in any way?’
‘I would give you my word, and my father’s word.’
‘Bah!’ exclaimed Miss Spencer: ‘how do you know I wouldn’t let you go
free for nothing? You are only a rash, silly girl.’
‘I know you wouldn’t. I can read your face too well.’
‘You are right,’ Miss Spencer replied slowly. ‘I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let
you go for all the dollars in America.’
Nella felt cold down the spine, and sat down again in her chair. A draught
of air from the broken window blew on her cheek. Steps sounded in the
passage; the door opened, but Nella did not turn round. She could not move
her eyes from Miss Spencer’s. There was a noise of rushing water in her
ears. She lost consciousness, and slipped limply to the ground.

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

person who had led her therein) she examined all visible details of the
vessel. The deck was as white and smooth as her own hand, and the seams
ran along its length like blue veins. All the brass-work, from the band round
the slender funnel to the concave surface of the binnacle, shone like gold.
The tapered masts stretched upwards at a rakish angle, and the rigging
seemed like spun silk. No sails were set; the yacht was under steam, and
doing about seven or eight knots. She judged that it was a boat of a hundred
tons or so, probably Clyde-built, and not more than two or three years old.
No one was to be seen on deck except the man at the wheel: this man
wore a blue jersey; but there was neither name nor initial on the jersey, nor
was there a name on the white life-buoys lashed to the main rigging, nor on
the polished dinghy which hung on the starboard davits. She called to the
man, and called again, in a feeble voice, but the steerer took no notice of
her, and continued his quiet song as though nothing else existed in the
universe save the yacht, the sea, the sun, and himself.
Then her eyes swept the outline of the land from which they were
hastening, and she could just distinguish a lighthouse and a great white
irregular dome, which she recognized as the Kursaal at Ostend, that
gorgeous rival of the gaming palace at Monte Carlo. So she was leaving
Ostend. The rays of the sun fell on her caressingly, like a restorative. All
around the water was changing from wonderful greys and dark blues to still
more wonderful pinks and translucent unearthly greens; the magic
kaleidoscope of dawn was going forward in its accustomed way, regardless
of the vicissitudes of mortals.
Here and there in the distance she descried a sail—the brown sail of some
Ostend fishing-boat returning home after a night’s trawling. Then the beat
of paddles caught her ear, and a steamer blundered past, wallowing clumsily
among the waves like a tortoise. It was the Swallow from London. She
could see some of its passengers leaning curiously over the aft-rail. A girl in
a mackintosh signalled to her, and mechanically she answered the salute
with her arm. The officer of the bridge of the Swallow hailed the yacht, but
the man at the wheel offered no reply. In another minute the Swallow was
nothing but a blot in the distance.
Nella tried to sit straight in the deck-chair, but she found herself unable to
do so. Throwing off the rug which covered her, she discovered that she had
been tied to the chair by means of a piece of broad webbing. Instantly she

was alert, awake, angry; she knew that her perils were not over; she felt that
possibly they had scarcely yet begun. Her lazy contentment, her dreamy
sense of peace and repose, vanished utterly, and she steeled herself to meet
the dangers of a grave and difficult situation.
Just at that moment a man came up from below. He was a man of forty or
so, clad in irreproachable blue, with a peaked yachting cap. He raised the
cap politely.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Beautiful sunrise, isn’t it?’ The clever and
calculated insolence of his tone cut her like a lash as she lay bound in the
chair. Like all people who have lived easy and joyous lives in those fair
regions where gold smoothes every crease and law keeps a tight hand on
disorder, she found it hard to realize that there were other regions where
gold was useless and law without power. Twenty-four hours ago she would
have declared it impossible that such an experience as she had suffered
could happen to anyone; she would have talked airily about civilization and
the nineteenth century, and progress and the police. But her experience was
teaching her that human nature remains always the same, and that beneath
the thin crust of security on which we good citizens exist the dark and
secret forces of crime continue to move, just as they did in the days when
you couldn’t go from Cheapside to Chelsea without being set upon by
thieves. Her experience was in a fair way to teach her this lesson better than
she could have learnt it even in the bureaux of the detective police of Paris,
London, and St Petersburg.
‘Good morning,’ the man repeated, and she glanced at him with a sullen,
angry gaze.
‘You!’ she exclaimed, ‘You, Mr Thomas Jackson, if that is your name!
Loose me from this chair, and I will talk to you.’ Her eyes flashed as she
spoke, and the contempt in them added mightily to her beauty. Mr Thomas
Jackson, otherwise Jules, erstwhile head waiter at the Grand Babylon,
considered himself a connoisseur in feminine loveliness, and the vision of
Nella Racksole smote him like an exquisite blow.
‘With pleasure,’ he replied. ‘I had forgotten that to prevent you from
falling I had secured you to the chair’; and with a quick movement he
unfastened the band. Nella stood up, quivering with fiery annoyance and
scorn.
‘Now,’ she said, fronting him, ‘what is the meaning of this?’

‘You fainted,’ he replied imperturbably. ‘Perhaps you don’t remember.’
The man offered her a deck-chair with a characteristic gesture. Nella was
obliged to acknowledge, in spite of herself, that the fellow had distinction,
an air of breeding. No one would have guessed that for twenty years he had
been an hotel waiter. His long, lithe figure, and easy, careless carriage
seemed to be the figure and carriage of an aristocrat, and his voice was
quiet, restrained, and authoritative.
‘That has nothing to do with my being carried off in this yacht of yours.’
‘It is not my yacht,’ he said, ‘but that is a minor detail. As to the more
important matter, forgive me that I remind you that only a few hours ago
you were threatening a lady in my house with a revolver.’
‘Then it was your house?’
‘Why not? May I not possess a house?’ He smiled.
‘I must request you to put the yacht about at once, instantly, and take me
back.’ She tried to speak firmly.
‘Ah!’ he said, ‘I am afraid that’s impossible. I didn’t put out to sea with
the intention of returning at once, instantly.’ In the last words he gave a faint
imitation of her tone.
‘When I do get back,’ she said, ‘when my father gets to know of this
affair, it will be an exceedingly bad day for you, Mr Jackson.’
‘But supposing your father doesn’t hear of it—’
‘What?’
‘Supposing you never get back?’
‘Do you mean, then, to have my murder on your conscience?’
‘Talking of murder,’ he said, ‘you came very near to murdering my
friend, Miss Spencer. At least, so she tells me.’
‘Is Miss Spencer on board?’ Nella asked, seeing perhaps a faint ray of
hope in the possible presence of a woman.
‘Miss Spencer is not on board. There is no one on board except you and
myself and a small crew—a very discreet crew, I may add.’
‘I will have nothing more to say to you. You must take your own course.’
‘Thanks for the permission,’ he said. ‘I will send you up some breakfast.’

He went to the saloon stairs and whistled, and a Negro boy appeared with
a tray of chocolate. Nella took it, and, without the slightest hesitation, threw
it overboard. Mr Jackson walked away a few steps and then returned.
‘You have spirit,’ he said, ‘and I admire spirit. It is a rare quality.’
She made no reply. ‘Why did you mix yourself up in my affairs at all?’ he
went on. Again she made no reply, but the question set her thinking: why
had she mixed herself up in this mysterious business? It was quite at
variance with the usual methods of her gay and butterfly existence to
meddle at all with serious things. Had she acted merely from a desire to see
justice done and wickedness punished? Or was it the desire of adventure?
Or was it, perhaps, the desire to be of service to His Serene Highness Prince
Aribert? ‘It is no fault of mine that you are in this fix,’ Jules continued. ‘I
didn’t bring you into it. You brought yourself into it. You and your father—
you have been moving along at a pace which is rather too rapid.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ she put in coldly.
‘It does,’ he admitted. ‘And I repeat that I can’t help admiring you—that
is, when you aren’t interfering with my private affairs. That is a proceeding
which I have never tolerated from anyone—not even from a millionaire, nor
even from a beautiful woman.’ He bowed. ‘I will tell you what I propose to
do. I propose to escort you to a place of safety, and to keep you there till my
operations are concluded, and the possibility of interference entirely
removed. You spoke just now of murder. What a crude notion that was of
yours! It is only the amateur who practises murder—’
‘What about Reginald Dimmock?’ she interjected quickly.
He paused gravely.
‘Reginald Dimmock,’ he repeated. ‘I had imagined his was a case of
heart disease. Let me send you up some more chocolate. I’m sure you’re
hungry.’
‘I will starve before I touch your food,’ she said.
‘Gallant creature!’ he murmured, and his eyes roved over her face. Her
superb, supercilious beauty overcame him. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘what a wife you
would make!’ He approached nearer to her. ‘You and I, Miss Racksole, your
beauty and wealth and my brains—we could conquer the world. Few men
are worthy of you, but I am one of the few. Listen! You might do worse.
Marry me. I am a great man; I shall be greater. I adore you. Marry me, and I

will save your life. All shall be well. I will begin again. The past shall be as
though there had been no past.’
‘This is somewhat sudden—Jules,’ she said with biting contempt.
‘Did you expect me to be conventional?’ he retorted. ‘I love you.’
‘Granted,’ she said, for the sake of the argument. ‘Then what will occur
to your present wife?’
‘My present wife?’
‘Yes, Miss Spencer, as she is called.’
‘She told you I was her husband?’
‘Incidentally she did.’
‘She isn’t.’
‘Perhaps she isn’t. But, nevertheless, I think I won’t marry you.’ Nella
stood like a statue of scorn before him.
He went still nearer to her. ‘Give me a kiss, then; one kiss—I won’t ask
for more; one kiss from those lips, and you shall go free. Men have ruined
themselves for a kiss. I will.’
‘Coward!’ she ejaculated.
‘Coward!’ he repeated. ‘Coward, am I? Then I’ll be a coward, and you
shall kiss me whether you will or not.’
He put a hand on her shoulder. As she shrank back from his lustrous eyes,
with an involuntary scream, a figure sprang out of the dinghy a few feet
away. With a single blow, neatly directed to Mr Jackson’s ear, Mr Jackson
was stretched senseless on the deck. Prince Aribert of Posen stood over him
with a revolver. It was probably the greatest surprise of Mr Jackson’s whole
life.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said the Prince to Nella, ‘my being here is the
simplest thing in the world, and I will explain it as soon as I have finished
with this fellow.’
Nella could think of nothing to say, but she noticed the revolver in the
Prince’s hand.
‘Why,’ she remarked, ‘that’s my revolver.’
‘It is,’ he said, ‘and I will explain that, too.’
The man at the wheel gave no heed whatever to the scene.

Chapter Eleven THE COURT PAWNBROKER
‘MR SAMPSON LEVI wishes to see you, sir.’

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

‘Perhaps it is Rocco he wants to see, about a menu or something of that
kind?’
‘I will inquire, sir,’ and the servant made a move to withdraw.
‘Stop,’ Racksole commanded suddenly. ‘Desire Mr Sampson Levi to step
this way.’
The great stockbroker of the ‘Kaffir Circus’ entered with a simple
unassuming air. He was a rather short, florid man, dressed like a typical
Hebraic financier, with too much watch-chain and too little waistcoat. In his
fat hand he held a gold-headed cane, and an absolutely new silk hat—for it
was Friday, and Mr Levi purchased a new hat every Friday of his life,
holiday times only excepted. He breathed heavily and sniffed through his
nose a good deal, as though he had just performed some Herculean physical
labour. He glanced at the American millionaire with an expression in which
a slight embarrassment might have been detected, but at the same time his
round, red face disclosed a certain frank admiration and good nature.
‘Mr Racksole, I believe—Mr Theodore Racksole. Proud to meet you, sir.’
Such were the first words of Mr Sampson Levi. In form they were the
greeting of a third-rate chimney-sweep, but, strangely enough, Theodore
Racksole liked their tone. He said to himself that here, precisely where no
one would have expected to find one, was an honest man.
‘Good day,’ said Racksole briefly. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure—’
‘I expect your time is limited,’ answered Sampson Levi. ‘Anyhow, mine
is, and so I’ll come straight to the point, Mr Racksole. I’m a plain man. I
don’t pretend to be a gentleman or any nonsense of that kind. I’m a
stockbroker, that’s what I am, and I don’t care who knows it. The other
night I had a ball in this hotel. It cost me a couple of thousand and odd
pounds, and, by the way, I wrote out a cheque for your bill this morning. I
don’t like balls, but they’re useful to me, and my little wife likes ‘em, and
so we give ‘em. Now, I’ve nothing to say against the hotel management as
regards that ball: it was very decently done, very decently, but what I want
to know is this—Why did you have a private detective among my guests?’
‘A private detective?’ exclaimed Racksole, somewhat surprised at this
charge.
‘Yes,’ Mr Sampson Levi said firmly, fanning himself in his chair, and
gazing at Theodore Racksole with the direct earnest expression of a man

having a grievance. ‘Yes; a private detective. It’s a small matter, I know, and
I dare say you think you’ve got a right, as proprietor of the show, to do what
you like in that line; but I’ve just called to tell you that I object. I’ve called
as a matter of principle. I’m not angry; it’s the principle of the thing.’
‘My dear Mr Levi,’ said Racksole, ‘I assure you that, having let the Gold
Room to a private individual for a private entertainment, I should never
dream of doing what you suggest.’
‘Straight?’ asked Mr Sampson Levi, using his own picturesque language.
‘Straight,’ said Racksole smiling.
‘There was a gent present at my ball that I didn’t ask. I’ve got a
wonderful memory for faces, and I know. Several fellows asked me
afterwards what he was doing there. I was told by someone that he was one
of your waiters, but I didn’t believe that. I know nothing of the Grand
Babylon; it’s not quite my style of tavern, but I don’t think you’d send one
of your own waiters to watch my guests—unless, of course, you sent him as
a waiter; and this chap didn’t do any waiting, though he did his share of
drinking.’
‘Perhaps I can throw some light on this mystery,’ said Racksole. ‘I may
tell you that I was already aware that man had attended your ball uninvited.’
‘How did you get to know?’
‘By pure chance, Mr Levi, and not by inquiry. That man was a former
waiter at this hotel—the head waiter, in fact—Jules. No doubt you have
heard of him.’
‘Not I,’ said Mr Levi positively.
‘Ah!’ said Racksole, ‘I was informed that everyone knew Jules, but it
appears not. Well, be that as it may, previously to the night of your ball, I
had dismissed Jules. I had ordered him never to enter the Babylon again.
But on that evening I encountered him here—not in the Gold Room, but
in the hotel itself. I asked him to explain his presence, and he stated he was
your guest. That is all I know of the matter, Mr Levi, and I am extremely
sorry that you should have thought me capable of the enormity of placing a
private detective among your guests.’
‘This is perfectly satisfactory to me,’ Mr Sampson Levi said, after a
pause.

‘I only wanted an explanation, and I’ve got it. I was told by some pals of
mine in the City I might rely on Mr Theodore Racksole going straight to the
point, and I’m glad they were right. Now as to that feller Jules, I shall make
my own inquiries as to him. Might I ask you why you dismissed him?’
‘I don’t know why I dismissed him.’
‘You don’t know? Oh! come now! I’m only asking because I thought you
might be able to give me a hint why he turned up uninvited at my ball.
Sorry if I’m too inquisitive.’
‘Not at all, Mr Levi; but I really don’t know. I only sort of felt that he
was a suspicious character. I dismissed him on instinct, as it were. See?’
Without answering this question Mr Levi asked another. ‘If this Jules is
such a well-known person,’ he said, ‘how could the feller hope to come to
my ball without being recognized?’
‘Give it up,’ said Racksole promptly.
‘Well, I’ll be moving on,’ was Mr Sampson Levi’s next remark. ‘Good
day, and thank ye. I suppose you aren’t doing anything in Kaffirs?’
Mr Racksole smiled a negative.
‘I thought not,’ said Levi. ‘Well, I never touch American rails myself, and
so I reckon we sha’n’t come across each other. Good day.’
‘Good day,’ said Racksole politely, following Mr Sampson Levi to the
door.
With his hand on the handle of the door, Mr Levi stopped, and, gazing at
Theodore Racksole with a shrewd, quizzical expression, remarked:
‘Strange things been going on here lately, eh?’
The two men looked very hard at each other for several seconds.
‘Yes,’ Racksole assented. ‘Know anything about them?’
‘Well—no, not exactly,’ said Mr Levi. ‘But I had a fancy you and I might
be useful to each other; I had a kind of fancy to that effect.’
‘Come back and sit down again, Mr Levi,’ Racksole said, attracted by the
evident straightforwardness of the man’s tone. ‘Now, how can we be of
service to each other? I flatter myself I’m something of a judge of character,
especially financial character, and I tell you—if you’ll put your cards on the
table, I’ll do ditto with mine.’

‘Agreed,’ said Mr Sampson Levi. ‘I’ll begin by explaining my interest in
your hotel. I have been expecting to receive a summons from a certain
Prince Eugen of Posen to attend him here, and that summons hasn’t arrived.
It appears that Prince Eugen hasn’t come to London at all. Now, I could
have taken my dying davy that he would have been here yesterday at the
latest.’
‘Why were you so sure?’
‘Question for question,’ said Levi. ‘Let’s clear the ground first, Mr
Racksole. Why did you buy this hotel? That’s a conundrum that’s been
puzzling a lot of our fellows in the City for some days past. Why did you
buy the Grand Babylon? And what is the next move to be?’
‘There is no next move,’ answered Racksole candidly, ‘and I will tell you
why I bought the hotel; there need be no secret about it. I bought it because
of a whim.’ And then Theodore Racksole gave this little Jew, whom he had
begun to respect, a faithful account of the transaction with Mr Felix
Babylon. ‘I suppose,’ he added, ‘you find a difficulty in appreciating my
state of mind when I did the deal.’
‘Not a bit,’ said Mr Levi. ‘I once bought an electric launch on the Thames
in a very similar way, and it turned out to be one of the most satisfactory
purchases I ever made. Then it’s a simple accident that you own this hotel at
the present moment?’
‘A simple accident—all because of a beefsteak and a bottle of Bass.’
‘Um!’ grunted Mr Sampson Levi, stroking his triple chin.
‘To return to Prince Eugen,’ Racksole resumed. ‘I was expecting His
Highness here. The State apartments had been prepared for him. He was
due on the very afternoon that young Dimmock died. But he never came,
and I have not heard why he has failed to arrive; nor have I seen his name in
the papers. What his business was in London, I don’t know.’
‘I will tell you,’ said Mr Sampson Levi, ‘he was coming to arrange a
loan.’
‘A State loan?’
‘No—a private loan.’
‘Whom from?’

‘From me, Sampson Levi. You look surprised. If you’d lived in London a
little longer, you’d know that I was just the person the Prince would come
to. Perhaps you aren’t aware that down Throgmorton Street way I’m called
“The Court Pawnbroker”, because I arrange loans for the minor, second-
class Princes of Europe. I’m a stockbroker, but my real business is
financing some of the little Courts of Europe. Now, I may tell you that the
Hereditary Prince of Posen particularly wanted a million, and he wanted it
by a certain date, and he knew that if the affair wasn’t fixed up by a certain
time here he wouldn’t be able to get it by that certain date. That’s why I’m
surprised he isn’t in London.’
‘What did he need a million for?’
‘Debts,’ answered Sampson Levi laconically.
‘His own?’
‘Certainly.’
‘But he isn’t thirty years of age?’
‘What of that? He isn’t the only European Prince who has run up a
million of debts in a dozen years. To a Prince the thing is as easy as eating a
sandwich.’
‘And why has he taken this sudden resolution to liquidate them?’
‘Because the Emperor and the lady’s parents won’t let him marry till he
has done so! And quite right, too! He’s got to show a clean sheet, or the
Princess Anna of Eckstein-Schwartzburg will never be Princess of Posen.
Even now the Emperor has no idea how much Prince Eugen’s debts amount
to. If he had—!’
‘But would not the Emperor know of this proposed loan?’
‘Not necessarily at once. It could be so managed. Twig?’ Mr Sampson
Levi laughed. ‘I’ve carried these little affairs through before. After marriage
it might be allowed to leak out. And you know the Princess Anna’s fortune
is pretty big! Now, Mr Racksole,’ he added, abruptly changing his tone,
‘where do you suppose Prince Eugen has disappeared to? Because if he
doesn’t turn up to-day he can’t have that million. To-day is the last day. To-
morrow the money will be appropriated, elsewhere. Of course, I’m not
alone in this business, and my friends have something to say.’
‘You ask me where I think Prince Eugen has disappeared to?’

‘I do.’
‘Then you think it’s a disappearance?’
Sampson Levi nodded. ‘Putting two and two together,’ he said, ‘I do. The
Dimmock business is very peculiar—very peculiar, indeed. Dimmock was a
left-handed relation of the Posen family. Twig? Scarcely anyone knows that.
He was made secretary and companion to Prince Aribert, just to keep him
in the domestic circle. His mother was an Irishwoman, whose misfortune
was that she was too beautiful. Twig?’ (Mr Sampson Levi always used this
extraordinary word when he was in a communicative mood.) ‘My belief is
that Dimmock’s death has something to do with the disappearance of Prince
Eugen.
The only thing that passes me is this: Why should anyone want to make
Prince Eugen disappear? The poor little Prince hasn’t an enemy in the
world. If he’s been “copped”, as they say, why has he been “copped”? It
won’t do anyone any good.’
‘Won’t it?’ repeated Racksole, with a sudden flash.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mr Levi.
‘I mean this: Suppose some other European pauper Prince was anxious to
marry Princess Anna and her fortune, wouldn’t that Prince have an interest
in stopping this loan of yours to Prince Eugen? Wouldn’t he have an interest
in causing Prince Eugen to disappear—at any rate, for a time?’
Sampson Levi thought hard for a few moments.
‘Mr Theodore Racksole,’ he said at length, ‘I do believe you have hit on
something.’

Chapter Twelve ROCCO AND ROOM NO. 111
ON the afternoon of the same day—the interview just described had
occurred in the morning—Racksole was visited by another idea, and he said
to himself that he ought to have thought of it before. The conversation with
Mr Sampson Levi had continued for a considerable time, and the two men
had exchanged various notions, and agreed to meet again, but the theory
that Reginald Dimmock had probably been a traitor to his family—a traitor
whose repentance had caused his death—had not been thoroughly
discussed; the talk had tended rather to Continental politics, with a view to
discovering what princely family might have an interest in the temporary
disappearance of Prince Eugen. Now, as Racksole considered in detail the
particular affair of Reginald Dimmock, deceased, he was struck by one
point especially, to wit: Why had Dimmock and Jules manoeuvred to turn
Nella Racksole out of Room No. 111 on that first night? That they had so
manoeuvred, that the broken window-pane was not a mere accident,
Racksole felt perfectly sure. He had felt perfectly sure all along; but the
significance of the facts had not struck him. It was plain to him now that
there must be something of extraordinary and peculiar importance about
Room No. 111. After lunch he wandered quietly upstairs and looked at
Room No. 111; that is to say, he looked at the outside of it; it happened to
be occupied, but the guest was leaving that evening. The thought crossed
his mind that there could be no object in gazing blankly at the outside of a
room; yet he gazed; then he wandered quickly down again to the next floor,
and in passing along the corridor of that floor he stopped, and with an
involuntary gesture stamped his foot.
‘Great Scott!’ he said, ‘I’ve got hold of something—No. 111 is exactly
over the State apartments.’
He went to the bureau, and issued instructions that No. 111 was not to be
re-let to anyone until further orders. At the bureau they gave him Nella’s
note, which ran thus:
Dearest Papa,—I am going away for a day or two on the trail of a clue.

If I’m not back in three days, begin to inquire for me at Ostend. Till then
leave me alone.—Your sagacious daughter, NELL.
These few words, in Nella’s large scrawling hand, filled one side of the
paper. At the bottom was a P.T.O. He turned over, and read the sentence,
underlined, ‘P.S.—Keep an eye on Rocco.’
‘I wonder what the little creature is up to?’ he murmured, as he tore the
letter into small fragments, and threw them into the waste-paper basket.
Then, without any delay, he took the lift down to the basement, with the
object of making a preliminary inspection of Rocco in his lair. He could
scarcely bring himself to believe that this suave and stately gentleman, this
enthusiast of gastronomy, was concerned in the machinations of Jules and
other rascals unknown. Nevertheless, from habit, he obeyed his daughter,
giving her credit for a certain amount of perspicuity and cleverness.
The kitchens of the Grand Babylon Hôtel are one of the wonders of
Europe.
Only three years before the events now under narration Felix Babylon
had had them newly installed with every device and patent that the
ingenuity of two continents could supply. They covered nearly an acre of
superficial space.
They were walled and floored from end to end with tiles and marble,
which enabled them to be washed down every morning like the deck of a
man-of-war.
Visitors were sometimes taken to see the potato-paring machine, the
patent plate-dryer, the Babylon-spit (a contrivance of Felix Babylon’s own),
the silver-grill, the system of connected stock-pots, and other amazing
phenomena of the department. Sometimes, if they were fortunate, they
might also see the artist who sculptured ice into forms of men and beasts for
table ornaments, or the first napkin-folder in London, or the man who daily
invented fresh designs for pastry and blancmanges. Twelve chefs pursued
their labours in those kitchens, helped by ninety assistant chefs, and a
further army of unconsidered menials. Over all these was Rocco, supreme
and unapproachable. Half-way along the suite of kitchens, Rocco had an
apartment of his own, wherein he thought out those magnificent
combinations, those marvellous feats of succulence and originality, which
had given him his fame. Visitors never caught a glimpse of Rocco in the
kitchens, though sometimes, on a special night, he would stroll

nonchalantly through the dining-room, like the great man he was, to receive
the compliments of the hotel habitués—people of insight who recognized
his uniqueness.
Theodore Racksole’s sudden and unusual appearance in the kitchen
caused a little stir. He nodded to some of the chefs, but said nothing to
anyone, merely wandering about amid the maze of copper utensils, and
white-capped workers. At length he saw Rocco, surrounded by several
admiring chefs. Rocco was bending over a freshly-roasted partridge which
lay on a blue dish. He plunged a long fork into the back of the bird, and
raised it in the air with his left hand. In his right he held a long glittering
carving-knife. He was giving one of his world-famous exhibitions of
carving. In four swift, unerring, delicate, perfect strokes he cleanly severed
the limbs of the partridge. It was a wonderful achievement—how wondrous
none but the really skilful carver can properly appreciate. The chefs emitted
a hum of applause, and Rocco, long, lean, and graceful, retired to his own
apartment. Racksole followed him. Rocco sat in a chair, one hand over his
eyes; he had not noticed Theodore Racksole.
‘What are you doing, M. Rocco?’ the millionaire asked smiling. ‘Ah!’
exclaimed Rocco, starting up with an apology. ‘Pardon! I was inventing a
new mayonnaise, which I shall need for a certain menu next week.’
‘Do you invent these things without materials, then?’ questioned
Racksole.
‘Certainly. I do dem in my mind. I tink dem. Why should I want
materials? I know all flavours. I tink, and tink, and tink, and it is done. I
write down.
I give the recipe to my best chef—dere you are. I need not even taste, I
know how it will taste. It is like composing music. De great composers do
not compose at de piano.’
‘I see,’ said Racksole.
‘It is because I work like dat dat you pay me three thousand a year,’
Rocco added gravely.
‘Heard about Jules?’ said Racksole abruptly.
‘Jules?’
‘Yes. He’s been arrested in Ostend,’ the millionaire continued, lying
cleverly at a venture. ‘They say that he and several others are implicated in

a murder case—the murder of Reginald Dimmock.’
‘Truly?’ drawled Rocco, scarcely hiding a yawn. His indifference was so
superb, so gorgeous, that Racksole instantly divined that it was assumed for
the occasion.
‘It seems that, after all, the police are good for something. But this is the
first time I ever knew them to be worth their salt. There is to be a thorough
and systematic search of the hotel to-morrow,’ Racksole went on. ‘I have
mentioned it to you to warn you that so far as you are concerned the search
is of course merely a matter of form. You will not object to the detectives
looking through your rooms?’
‘Certainly not,’ and Rocco shrugged his shoulders.
‘I shall ask you to say nothing about this to anyone,’ said Racksole. ‘The
news of Jules’ arrest is quite private to myself. The papers know nothing of
it. You comprehend?’
Rocco smiled in his grand manner, and Rocco’s master thereupon went
away.
Racksole was very well satisfied with the little conversation. It was
perhaps dangerous to tell a series of mere lies to a clever fellow like Rocco,
and Racksole wondered how he should ultimately explain them to this great
master-chef if his and Nella’s suspicions should be unfounded, and nothing
came of them. Nevertheless, Rocco’s manner, a strange elusive something
in the man’s eyes, had nearly convinced Racksole that he was somehow
implicated in Jules’ schemes—and probably in the death of Reginald
Dimmock and the disappearance of Prince Eugen of Posen.
That night, or rather about half-past one the next morning, when the last
noises of the hotel’s life had died down, Racksole made his way to Room
111 on the second floor. He locked the door on the inside, and proceeded to
examine the place, square foot by square foot. Every now and then some
creak or other sound startled him, and he listened intently for a few seconds.
The bedroom was furnished in the ordinary splendid style of bedrooms at
the Grand Babylon Hôtel, and in that respect called for no remark. What
most interested Racksole was the flooring. He pulled up the thick Oriental
carpet, and peered along every plank, but could discover nothing unusual.
Then he went to the dressing-room, and finally to the bathroom, both of
which opened out of the main room. But in neither of these smaller

chambers was he any more successful than in the bedroom itself. Finally he
came to the bath, which was enclosed in a panelled casing of polished
wood, after the manner of baths. Some baths have a cupboard beneath the
taps, with a door at the side, but this one appeared to have none. He tapped
the panels, but not a single one of them gave forth that ‘curious hollow
sound’ which usually betokens a secret place. Idly he turned the cold-tap of
the bath, and the water began to rush in. He turned off the cold-tap and
turned on the waste-tap, and as he did so his knee, which was pressing
against the panelling, slipped forward. The panelling had given way, and he
saw that one large panel was hinged from the inside, and caught with a
hasp, also on the inside. A large space within the casing of the end of the
bath was thus revealed. Before doing anything else, Racksole tried to repeat
the trick with the waste-tap, but he failed; it would not work again, nor
could he in any way perceive that there was any connection between the rod
of the waste-tap and the hasp of the panel. Racksole could not see into the
cavity within the casing, and the electric light was fixed, and could not be
moved about like a candle. He felt in his pockets, and fortunately
discovered a box of matches. Aided by these, he looked into the cavity, and
saw nothing; nothing except a rather large hole at the far end—some three
feet from the casing. With some difficulty he squeezed himself through the
open panel, and took a half-kneeling, half-sitting posture within. There he
struck a match, and it was a most unfortunate thing that in striking, the box
being half open, he set fire to all the matches, and was half smothered in the
atrocious stink of phosphorus which resulted. One match burned clear on
the floor of the cavity, and, rubbing his eyes, Racksole picked it up, and
looked down the hole which he had previously descried. It was a hole
apparently bottomless, and about eighteen inches square. The curious part
about the hole was that a rope-ladder hung down it. When he saw that rope-
ladder Racksole smiled the smile of a happy man.
The match went out.
Should he make a long journey, perhaps to some distant corner of the
hotel, for a fresh box of matches, or should he attempt to descend that rope-
ladder in the dark? He decided on the latter course, and he was the more
strongly moved thereto as he could now distinguish a faint, a very faint
tinge of light at the bottom of the hole.

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

Chapter Thirteen IN THE STATE BEDROOM
IT was of course plain to Racksole that the peculiar passageway which he
had, at great personal inconvenience, discovered between the bathroom of
No. 111 and the State bathroom on the floor below must have been specially
designed by some person or persons for the purpose of keeping a nefarious
watch upon the occupants of the State suite of apartments. It was a means of
communication at once simple and ingenious. At that moment he could not
be sure of the precise method employed for it, but he surmised that the
casing of the waterpipes had been used as a ‘well’, while space for the pipes
themselves had been found in the thickness of the ample brick walls of the
Grand Babylon. The eye-hole, through which he now had a view of the
bedroom, was a very minute one, and probably would scarcely be noticed
from the exterior. One thing he observed concerning it, namely, that it had
been made for a man somewhat taller than himself; he was obliged to stand
on tiptoe in order to get his eye in the correct position. He remembered that
both Jules and Rocco were distinctly above the average height; also that
they were both thin men, and could have descended the well with
comparative ease. Theodore Racksole, though not stout, was a well-set man
with large bones.
These things flashed through his mind as he gazed, spellbound, at the
mysterious movements of Rocco. The door between the bathroom and the
bedroom was wide open, and his own situation was such that his view
embraced a considerable portion of the bedroom, including the whole of the
immense and gorgeously-upholstered bedstead, but not including the whole
of the marble washstand. He could see only half of the washstand, and at
intervals Rocco passed out of sight as his lithe hands moved over the object
which lay on the marble. At first Theodore Racksole could not decide what
this object was, but after a time, as his eyes grew accustomed to the position
and the light, he made it out.
It was the body of a man. Or, rather, to be more exact, Racksole could
discern the legs of a man on that half of the table which was visible to him.
Involuntarily he shuddered, as the conviction forced itself upon him that
Rocco had some unconscious human being helpless on that cold marble

surface. The legs never moved. Therefore, the hapless creature was either
asleep or under the influence of an anaesthetic—or (horrible thought!) dead.
Racksole wanted to call out, to stop by some means or other the dreadful
midnight activity which was proceeding before his astonished eyes; but
fortunately he restrained himself.
On the washstand he could see certain strangely-shaped utensils and
instruments which Rocco used from time to time. The work seemed to
Racksole to continue for interminable hours, and then at last Rocco ceased,
gave a sign of satisfaction, whistled several bars from ‘Cavalleria
Rusticana’, and came into the bath-room, where he took off his coat, and
very quietly washed his hands. As he stood calmly and leisurely wiping
those long fingers of his, he was less than four feet from Racksole, and the
cooped-up millionaire trembled, holding his breath, lest Rocco should
detect his presence behind the woodwork. But nothing happened, and
Rocco returned unsuspectingly to the bedroom. Racksole saw him place
some sort of white flannel garment over the prone form on the table, and
then lift it bodily on to the great bed, where it lay awfully still. The hidden
watcher was sure now that it was a corpse upon which Rocco had been
exercising his mysterious and sinister functions.
But whose corpse? And what functions? Could this be a West End hotel,
Racksole’s own hotel, in the very heart of London, the best-policed city in
the world? It seemed incredible, impossible; yet so it was. Once more he
remembered what Felix Babylon had said to him and realized the truth of
the saying anew. The proprietor of a vast and complicated establishment
like the Grand Babylon could never know a tithe of the extraordinary and
queer occurrences which happened daily under his very nose; the
atmosphere of such a caravanserai must necessarily be an atmosphere of
mystery and problems apparently inexplicable. Nevertheless, Racksole
thought that Fate was carrying things with rather a high hand when she
permitted his chef to spend the night hours over a man’s corpse in his State
bedroom, this sacred apartment which was supposed to be occupied only by
individuals of Royal Blood. Racksole would not have objected to a certain
amount of mystery, but he decidedly thought that there was a little too much
mystery here for his taste. He thought that even Felix Babylon would have
been surprised at this.

The electric chandelier in the centre of the ceiling was not lighted; only
the two lights on either side of the washstand were switched on, and these
did not sufficiently illuminate the features of the man on the bed to enable
Racksole to see them clearly. In vain the millionaire strained his eyes; he
could only make out that the corpse was probably that of a young man. Just
as he was wondering what would be the best course of action to pursue, he
saw Rocco with a square-shaped black box in his hand. Then the chef
switched off the two electric lights, and the State bedroom was in darkness.
In that swift darkness Racksole heard Rocco spring on to the bed. Another
half-dozen moments of suspense, and there was a blinding flash of white,
which endured for several seconds, and showed Rocco standing like an evil
spirit over the corpse, the black box in one hand and a burning piece of
aluminium wire in the other. The aluminium wire burnt out, and darkness
followed blacker than before.
Rocco had photographed the corpse by flashlight.
But the dazzling flare which had disclosed the features of the dead man
to the insensible lens of the camera had disclosed them also to Theodore
Racksole. The dead man was Reginald Dimmock!
Stung into action by this discovery, Racksole tried to find the exit from
his place of concealment. He felt sure that there existed some way out into
the State bathroom, but he sought for it fruitlessly, groping with both hands
and feet. Then he decided that he must ascend the rope-ladder, make haste
for the first-floor corridor, and intercept Rocco when he left the State
apartments. It was a painful and difficult business to ascend that thin and
yielding ladder in such a confined space, but Racksole was managing it
very nicely, and had nearly reached the top, when, by some untoward freak
of chance, the ladder broke above his weight, and he slipped ignominiously
down to the bottom of the wooden tube. Smothering an excusable curse,
Racksole crouched, baffled. Then he saw that the force of his fall had
somehow opened a trap-door at his feet. He squeezed through, pushed open
another tiny door, and in another second stood in the State bathroom. He
was dishevelled, perspiring, rather bewildered; but he was there. In the next
second he had resumed absolute command of all his faculties.
Strange to say, he had moved so quietly that Rocco had apparently not
heard him. He stepped noiselessly to the door between the bathroom and the

bedroom, and stood there in silence. Rocco had switched on again the lights
over the washstand and was busy with his utensils.
Racksole deliberately coughed.

Chapter Fourteen ROCCO ANSWERS SOME
QUESTIONS
ROCCO turned round with the swiftness of a startled tiger, and gave
Theodore Racksole one long piercing glance.
‘D—n!’ said Rocco, with as pure an Anglo-Saxon accent and intonation
as Racksole himself could have accomplished.
The most extraordinary thing about the situation was that at this juncture
Theodore Racksole did not know what to say. He was so dumbfounded by
the affair, and especially by Rocco’s absolute and sublime calm, that both
speech and thought failed him.
‘I give in,’ said Rocco. ‘From the moment you entered this cursed hotel I
was afraid of you. I told Jules I was afraid of you. I knew there would be
trouble with a man of your kidney, and I was right; confound it! I tell you I
give in. I know when I’m beaten. I’ve got no revolver and no weapons of
any kind. I surrender. Do what you like.’
And with that Rocco sat down on a chair. It was magnificently done.
Only a truly great man could have done it. Rocco actually kept his dignity.
For answer, Racksole walked slowly into the vast apartment, seized a
chair, and, dragging it up to Rocco’s chair, sat down opposite to him. Thus
they faced each other, their knees almost touching, both in evening dress.
On Rocco’s right hand was the bed, with the corpse of Reginald Dimmock.
On Racksole’s right hand, and a little behind him, was the marble
washstand, still littered with Rocco’s implements. The electric light shone
on Rocco’s left cheek, leaving the other side of his face in shadow.
Racksole tapped him on the knee twice.
‘So you’re another Englishman masquerading as a foreigner in my hotel,’
Racksole remarked, by way of commencing the interrogation.
‘I’m not,’ answered Rocco quietly. ‘I’m a citizen of the United States.’
‘The deuce you are!’ Racksole exclaimed.
‘Yes, I was born at West Orange, New Jersey, New York State. I call
myself an Italian because it was in Italy that I first made a name as a chef—

at Rome. It is better for a great chef like me to be a foreigner. Imagine a
great chef named Elihu P. Rucker. You can’t imagine it. I changed my
nationality for the same reason that my friend and colleague, Jules,
otherwise Mr Jackson, changed his.’
‘So Jules is your friend and colleague, is he?’
‘He was, but from this moment he is no longer. I began to disapprove of
his methods no less than a week ago, and my disapproval will now take
active form.’
‘Will it?’ said Racksole. ‘I calculate it just won’t, Mr Elihu P. Rucker,
citizen of the United States. Before you are very much older you’ll be in the
kind hands of the police, and your activities, in no matter what direction,
will come to an abrupt conclusion.’
‘It is possible,’ sighed Rocco.
‘In the meantime, I’ll ask you one or two questions for my own private
satisfaction. You’ve acknowledged that the game is up, and you may as well
answer them with as much candour as you feel yourself capable of. See?’
‘I see,’ replied Rocco calmly, ‘but I guess I can’t answer all questions.
I’ll do what I can.’
‘Well,’ said Racksole, clearing his throat, ‘what’s the scheme all about?
Tell me in a word.’
‘Not in a thousand words. It isn’t my secret, you know.’
‘Why was poor little Dimmock poisoned?’ The millionaire’s voice
softened as he looked for an instant at the corpse of the unfortunate young
man.
‘I don’t know,’ said Rocco. ‘I don’t mind informing you that I objected to
that part of the business. I wasn’t made aware of it till after it was done, and
then I tell you it got my dander up considerable.’
‘You mean to say you don’t know why Dimmock was done to death?’
‘I mean to say I couldn’t see the sense of it. Of course he—er—died,
because he sort of cried off the scheme, having previously taken a share of
it. I don’t mind saying that much, because you probably guessed it for
yourself. But I solemnly state that I have a conscientious objection to
murder.’
‘Then it was murder?’

‘It was a kind of murder,’ Rocco admitted. ‘Who did it?’
‘Unfair question,’ said Rocco.
‘Who else is in this precious scheme besides Jules and yourself?’
‘Don’t know, on my honour.’
‘Well, then, tell me this. What have you been doing to Dimmock’s body?’
‘How long were you in that bathroom?’ Rocco parried with sublime
impudence.
‘Don’t question me, Mr Rucker,’ said Theodore Racksole. ‘I feel very
much inclined to break your back across my knee. Therefore I advise you
not to irritate me. What have you been doing to Dimmock’s body?’
‘I’ve been embalming it.’
‘Em—balming it.’
‘Certainly; Richardson’s system of arterial fluid injection, as improved
by myself. You weren’t aware that I included the art of embalming among
my accomplishments. Nevertheless, it is so.’
‘But why?’ asked Racksole, more mystified than ever. ‘Why should you
trouble to embalm the poor chap’s corpse?’
‘Can’t you see? Doesn’t it strike you? That corpse has to be taken care of.
It contains, or rather, it did contain, very serious evidence against some
person or persons unknown to the police. It may be necessary to move it
about from place to place. A corpse can’t be hidden for long; a corpse
betrays itself. One couldn’t throw it in the Thames, for it would have been
found inside twelve hours. One couldn’t bury it—it wasn’t safe. The only
thing was to keep it handy and movable, ready for emergencies. I needn’t
inform you that, without embalming, you can’t keep a corpse handy and
movable for more than four or five days. It’s the kind of thing that won’t
keep. And so it was suggested that I should embalm it, and I did. Mind you,
I still objected to the murder, but I couldn’t go back on a colleague, you
understand. You do understand that, don’t you? Well, here you are, and here
it is, and that’s all.’
Rocco leaned back in his chair as though he had said everything that
ought to be said. He closed his eyes to indicate that so far as he was
concerned the conversation was also closed. Theodore Racksole stood up.

‘I hope,’ said Rocco, suddenly opening his eyes, ‘I hope you’ll call in the
police without any delay. It’s getting late, and I don’t like going without my
night’s rest.’
‘Where do you suppose you’ll get a night’s rest?’ Racksole asked.
‘In the cells, of course. Haven’t I told you I know when I’m beaten. I’m
not so blind as not to be able to see that there’s at any rate a prima facie
case against me. I expect I shall get off with a year or two’s imprisonment
as accessory after the fact—I think that’s what they call it. Anyhow, I shall
be in a position to prove that I am not implicated in the murder of this
unfortunate nincompoop.’ He pointed, with a strange, scornful gesture of
his elbow, to the bed. ‘And now, shall we go? Everyone is asleep, but there
will be a policeman within call of the watchman in the portico. I am at your
service. Let us go down together, Mr Racksole. I give you my word to go
quietly.’
‘Stay a moment,’ said Theodore Racksole curtly; ‘there is no hurry. It
won’t do you any harm to forego another hour’s sleep, especially as you
will have no work to do to-morrow. I have one or two more questions to put
to you.’
‘Well?’ Rocco murmured, with an air of tired resignation, as if to say,
‘What must be must be.’
‘Where has Dimmock’s corpse been during the last three or four days,
since he—died?’
‘Oh!’ answered Rocco, apparently surprised at the simplicity of the
question. ‘It’s been in my room, and one night it was on the roof; once it
went out of the hotel as luggage, but it came back the next day as a case of
Demerara sugar. I forget where else it has been, but it’s been kept perfectly
safe and treated with every consideration.’
‘And who contrived all these manoeuvres?’ asked Racksole as calmly as
he could.
‘I did. That is to say, I invented them and I saw that they were carried
out. You see, the suspicions of your police obliged me to be particularly
spry.’
‘And who carried them out?’
‘Ah! that would be telling tales. But I don’t mind assuring you that my
accomplices were innocent accomplices. It is absurdly easy for a man like

me to impose on underlings—absurdly easy.’
‘What did you intend to do with the corpse ultimately?’ Racksole pursued
his inquiry with immovable countenance.
‘Who knows?’ said Rocco, twisting his beautiful moustache. ‘That would
have depended on several things—on your police, for instance. But
probably in the end we should have restored this mortal clay’—again he
jerked his elbow—‘to the man’s sorrowing relatives.’
‘Do you know who the relatives are?’
‘Certainly. Don’t you? If you don’t I need only hint that Dimmock had a
Prince for his father.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Racksole, with cold sarcasm, ‘that you behaved
rather clumsily in choosing this bedroom as the scene of your operations.’
‘Not at all,’ said Rocco. ‘There was no other apartment so suitable in the
whole hotel. Who would have guessed that anything was going on here? It
was the very place for me.’
‘I guessed,’ said Racksole succinctly.
‘Yes, you guessed, Mr Racksole. But I had not counted on you. You are
the only smart man in the business. You are an American citizen, and I
hadn’t reckoned to have to deal with that class of person.’
‘Apparently I frightened you this afternoon?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘You were not afraid of a search?’
‘I knew that no search was intended. I knew that you were trying to
frighten me. You must really credit me with a little sagacity and insight, Mr
Racksole. Immediately you began to talk to me in the kitchen this afternoon
I felt you were on the track. But I was not frightened. I merely decided that
there was no time to be lost—that I must act quickly. I did act quickly, but,
it seems, not quickly enough. I grant that your rapidity exceeded mine. Let
us go downstairs, I beg.’
Rocco rose and moved towards the door. With an instinctive action
Racksole rushed forward and seized him by the shoulder.
‘No tricks!’ said Racksole. ‘You’re in my custody and don’t forget it.’
Rocco turned on his employer a look of gentle, dignified scorn. ‘Have I
not informed you,’ he said, ‘that I have the intention of going quietly?’

Racksole felt almost ashamed for the moment. It flashed across him that
a man can be great, even in crime.
‘What an ineffable fool you were,’ said Racksole, stopping him at the
threshold, ‘with your talents, your unique talents, to get yourself mixed up
in an affair of this kind. You are ruined. And, by Jove! you were a great man
in your own line.’
‘Mr Racksole,’ said Rocco very quickly, ‘that is the truest word you have
spoken this night. I was a great man in my own line. And I am an ineffable
fool. Alas!’ He brought his long arms to his sides with a thud.
‘Why did you do it?’
‘I was fascinated—fascinated by Jules. He, too, is a great man. We had
great opportunities, here in the Grand Babylon. It was a great game. It was
worth the candle. The prizes were enormous. You would admit these things
if you knew the facts. Perhaps some day you will know them, for you are a
fairly clever person at getting to the root of a matter. Yes, I was blinded,
hypnotized.’
‘And now you are ruined.’
‘Not ruined, not ruined. Afterwards, in a few years, I shall come up
again.
A man of genius like me is never ruined till he is dead. Genius is always
forgiven. I shall be forgiven. Suppose I am sent to prison. When I emerge I
shall be no gaol-bird. I shall be Rocco—the great Rocco. And half the
hotels in Europe will invite me to join them.’
‘Let me tell you, as man to man, that you have achieved your own
degradation. There is no excuse.’
‘I know it,’ said Rocco. ‘Let us go.’
Racksole was distinctly and notably impressed by this man—by this
master spirit to whom he was to have paid a salary at the rate of three
thousand pounds a year. He even felt sorry for him. And so, side by side, the
captor and the captured, they passed into the vast deserted corridor of the
hotel.
Rocco stopped at the grating of the first lift.
‘It will be locked,’ said Racksole. ‘We must use the stairs to-night.’

‘But I have a key. I always carry one,’ said Rocco, and he pulled one out
of his pocket, and, unfastening the iron screen, pushed it open. Racksole
smiled at his readiness and aplomb.
‘After you,’ said Rocco, bowing in his finest manner, and Racksole
stepped into the lift.
With the swiftness of lighting Rocco pushed forward the iron screen,
which locked itself automatically. Theodore Racksole was hopelessly a
prisoner within the lift, while Rocco stood free in the corridor.
‘Good-bye, Mr Racksole,’ he remarked suavely, bowing again, lower
than before. ‘Good-bye: I hate to take a mean advantage of you in this
fashion, but really you must allow that you have been very simple. You are
a clever man, as I have already said, up to a certain point. It is past that
point that my own cleverness comes in. Again, good-bye. After all, I shall
have no rest to-night, but perhaps even that will be better that sleeping in a
police cell. If you make a great noise you may wake someone and
ultimately get released from this lift. But I advise you to compose yourself,
and wait till morning. It will be more dignified. For the third time, good-
bye.’
And with that Rocco, without hastening, walked down the corridor and
so out of sight.
Racksole said never a word. He was too disgusted with himself to speak.
He clenched his fists, and put his teeth together, and held his breath. In the
silence he could hear the dwindling sound of Rocco’s footsteps on the thick
carpet.
It was the greatest blow of Racksole’s life.
The next morning the high-born guests of the Grand Babylon were
aroused by a rumour that by some accident the millionaire proprietor of the
hotel had remained all night locked up in the lift. It was also stated that
Rocco had quarrelled with his new master and incontinently left the place.
A duchess said that Rocco’s departure would mean the ruin of the hotel,
whereupon her husband advised her not to talk nonsense.
As for Racksole, he sent a message for the detective in charge of the
Dimmock affair, and bravely told him the happenings of the previous night.
The narration was a decided ordeal to a man of Racksole’s temperament.

‘A strange story!’ commented Detective Marshall, and he could not avoid
a smile. ‘The climax was unfortunate, but you have certainly got some
valuable facts.’
Racksole said nothing.
‘I myself have a clue,’ added the detective. ‘When your message arrived I
was just coming up to see you. I want you to accompany me to a certain
spot not far from here. Will you come, now, at once?’
‘With pleasure,’ said Racksole.
At that moment a page entered with a telegram. Racksole opened it read:
‘Please come instantly. Nella. Hôtel Wellington, Ostend.’
He looked at his watch.
‘I can’t come,’ he said to the detective. I’m going to Ostend.’
‘To Ostend?’
‘Yes, now.’
‘But really, Mr Racksole,’ protested the detective. ‘My business is
urgent.’
‘So’s mine,’ said Racksole.
In ten minutes he was on his way to Victoria Station.

Chapter Fifteen END OF THE YACHT
ADVENTURE
WE must now return to Nella Racksole and Prince Aribert of Posen on
board the yacht without a name. The Prince’s first business was to make
Jules, otherwise Mr Tom Jackson, perfectly secure by means of several
pieces of rope. Although Mr Jackson had been stunned into a complete
unconsciousness, and there was a contused wound under his ear, no one
could say how soon he might not come to himself and get very violent. So
the Prince, having tied his arms and legs, made him fast to a stanchion.
‘I hope he won’t die,’ said Nella. ‘He looks very white.’
‘The Mr Jacksons of this world,’ said Prince Aribert sententiously, ‘never
die till they are hung. By the way, I wonder how it is that no one has
interfered with us. Perhaps they are discreetly afraid of my revolver—of
your revolver, I mean.’
Both he and Nella glanced up at the imperturbable steersman, who kept
the yacht’s head straight out to sea. By this time they were about a couple of
miles from the Belgian shore.
Addressing him in French, the Prince ordered the sailor to put the yacht
about, and make again for Ostend Harbour, but the fellow took no notice
whatever of the summons. The Prince raised the revolver, with the idea of
frightening the steersman, and then the man began to talk rapidly in a
mixture of French and Flemish. He said that he had received Jules’ strict
orders not to interfere in any way, no matter what might happen on the deck
of the yacht. He was the captain of the yacht, and he had to make for a
certain English port, the name of which he could not divulge: he was to
keep the vessel at full steam ahead under any and all circumstances. He
seemed to be a very big, a very strong, and a very determined man, and the
Prince was at a loss what course of action to pursue. He asked several more
questions, but the only effect of them was to render the man taciturn and ill-
humoured.
In vain Prince Aribert explained that Miss Nella Racksole, daughter of
millionaire Racksole, had been abducted by Mr Tom Jackson; in vain he

flourished the revolver threateningly; the surly but courageous captain said
merely that that had nothing to do with him; he had instructions, and he
should carry them out. He sarcastically begged to remind his interlocutor
that he was the captain of the yacht.
‘It won’t do to shoot him, I suppose,’ said the Prince to Nella. ‘I might
bore a hole into his leg, or something of that kind.’
‘It’s rather risky, and rather hard on the poor captain, with his
extraordinary sense of duty,’ said Nella. ‘And, besides, the whole crew
might turn on us. No, we must think of something else.’
‘I wonder where the crew is,’ said the Prince.
Just then Mr Jackson, prone and bound on the deck, showed signs of
recovering from his swoon. His eyes opened, and he gazed vacantly around.
At length he caught sight of the Prince, who approached him with the
revolver well in view.
‘It’s you, is it?’ he murmured faintly. ‘What are you doing on board?
Who’s tied me up like this?’
‘See here!’ replied the Prince, ‘I don’t want to have any arguments, but
this yacht must return to Ostend at once, where you will be given up to the
authorities.’
‘Really!’ snarled Mr Tom Jackson. ‘Shall I!’ Then he called out in French
to the man at the wheel, ‘Hi André! let these two be put off in the dinghy.’
It was a peculiar situation. Certain of nothing but the possession of
Nella’s revolver, the Prince scarcely knew whether to carry the argument
further, and with stronger measures, or to accept the situation with as much
dignity as the circumstances would permit.
‘Let us take the dinghy,’ said Nella; ‘we can row ashore in an hour.’
He felt that she was right. To leave the yacht in such a manner seemed
somewhat ignominious, and it certainly involved the escape of that
profound villain, Mr Thomas Jackson. But what else could be done? The
Prince and Nella constituted one party on the vessel; they knew their own
strength, but they did not know the strength of their opponents. They held
the hostile ringleader bound and captive, but this man had proved himself
capable of giving orders, and even to gag him would not help them if the
captain of the yacht persisted in his obstinate course. Moreover, there was a

distinct objection to promiscuous shooting. The Prince felt that there was no
knowing how promiscuous shooting might end.
‘We will take the dinghy,’ said the Prince quickly, to the captain.
A bell rang below, and a sailor and the Negro boy appeared on deck. The
pulsations of the screw grew less rapid. The yacht stopped. The dinghy was
lowered. As the Prince and Nella prepared to descend into the little cock-
boat Mr Tom Jackson addressed Nella, all bound as he lay.
‘Good-bye,’ he said, ‘I shall see you again, never fear.’.
In another moment they were in the dinghy, and the dinghy was adrift.
The yacht’s screw churned the water, and the beautiful vessel slipped away
from them. As it receded a figure appeared at the stem. It was Mr Thomas
Jackson.
He had been released by his minions. He held a white handkerchief to his
ear, and offered a calm, enigmatic smile to the two forlorn but victorious
occupants of the dinghy. Jules had been defeated for once in his life; or
perhaps it would be more just to say that he had been out-manoeuvred. Men
like Jules are incapable of being defeated. It was characteristic of his luck
that now, in the very hour when he had been caught red-handed in a serious
crime against society, he should be effecting a leisurely escape—an escape
which left no clue behind.
The sea was utterly calm and blue in the morning sun. The dinghy rocked
itself lazily in the swell of the yacht’s departure. As the mist cleared away
the outline of the shore became more distinct, and it appeared as if Ostend
was distant scarcely a cable’s length. The white dome of the great Kursaal
glittered in the pale turquoise sky, and the smoke of steamers in the harbour
could be plainly distinguished. On the offing was a crowd of brown-sailed
fishing luggers returning with the night’s catch. The many-hued bathing-
vans could be counted on the distant beach. Everything seemed perfectly
normal. It was difficult for either Nella or her companion to realize that
anything extraordinary had happened within the last hour. Yet there was the
yacht, not a mile off, to prove to them that something very extraordinary
had, in fact, happened. The yacht was no vision, nor was that sinister
watching figure at its stern a vision, either.
‘I suppose Jules was too surprised and too feeble to inquire how I came
to be on board his yacht,’ said the Prince, taking the oars.

‘Oh! How did you?’ asked Nella, her face lighting up. ‘Really, I had
almost forgotten that part of the affair.’
‘I must begin at the beginning and it will take some time,’ answered the
Prince. ‘Had we not better postpone the recital till we get ashore?’
‘I will row and you shall talk,’ said Nella. ‘I want to know now.’
He smiled happily at her, but gently declined to yield up the oars.
‘Is it not sufficient that I am here?’ he said.
‘It is sufficient, yes,’ she replied, ‘but I want to know.’
With a long, easy stroke he was pulling the dinghy shorewards. She sat in
the stern-sheets.
‘There is no rudder,’ he remarked, ‘so you must direct me. Keep the
boat’s head on the lighthouse. The tide seems to be running in strongly; that
will help us. The people on shore will think that we have only been for a
little early morning excursion.’
‘Will you kindly tell me how it came about that you were able to save my
life, Prince?’ she said.
‘Save your life, Miss Racksole? I didn’t save your life; I merely knocked
a man down.’
‘You saved my life,’ she repeated. ‘That villain would have stopped at
nothing. I saw it in his eye.’
‘Then you were a brave woman, for you showed no fear of death.’ His
admiring gaze rested full on her. For a moment the oars ceased to move.
She gave a gesture of impatience.
‘It happened that I saw you last night in your carriage,’ he said. ‘The fact
is, I had not had the audacity to go to Berlin with my story. I stopped in
Ostend to see whether I could do a little detective work on my own account.
It was a piece of good luck that I saw you. I followed the carriage as
quickly as I could, and I just caught a glimpse of you as you entered that
awful house. I knew that Jules had something to do with that house. I
guessed what you were doing. I was afraid for you. Fortunately I had
surveyed the house pretty thoroughly. There is an entrance to it at the back,
from a narrow lane. I made my way there. I got into the yard at the back,
and I stood under the window of the room where you had the interview with
Miss Spencer. I heard everything that was said. It was a courageous

enterprise on your part to follow Miss Spencer from the Grand Babylon to
Ostend. Well, I dared not force an entrance, lest I might precipitate matters
too suddenly, and involve both of us in a difficulty. I merely kept watch. Ah,
Miss Racksole! you were magnificent with Miss Spencer; as I say, I could
hear every word, for the window was slightly open. I felt that you needed
no assistance from me. And then she cheated you with a trick, and the
revolver came flying through the window. I picked it up, I thought it would
probably be useful. There was a silence. I did not guess at first that you had
fainted. I thought that you had escaped. When I found out the truth it was
too late for me to intervene. There were two men, both desperate, besides
Miss Spencer—’
‘Who was the other man?’ asked Nella.
‘I do not know. It was dark. They drove away with you to the harbour.
Again I followed. I saw them carry you on board. Before the yacht weighed
anchor I managed to climb unobserved into the dinghy. I lay down full
length in it, and no one suspected that I was there. I think you know the
rest.’
‘Was the yacht all ready for sea?’
‘The yacht was all ready for sea. The captain fellow was on the bridge,
and steam was up.’
‘Then they expected me! How could that be?’
‘They expected some one. I do not think they expected you.’
‘Did the second man go on board?’
‘He helped to carry you along the gangway, but he came back again to
the carriage. He was the driver.’
‘And no one else saw the business?’
‘The quay was deserted. You see, the last steamer had arrived for the
night.’
There was a brief silence, and then Nella ejaculated, under her breath.
‘Truly, it is a wonderful world!’
And it was a wonderful world for them, though scarcely perhaps, in the
sense which Nella Racksole had intended. They had just emerged from a
highly disconcerting experience. Among other minor inconveniences, they
had had no breakfast. They were out in the sea in a tiny boat. Neither of

them knew what the day might bring forth. The man, at least, had the most
serious anxieties for the safety of his Royal nephew. And yet—and yet—
neither of them wished that that voyage of the little boat on the summer tide
should come to an end. Each, perhaps unconsciously, had a vague desire
that it might last for ever, he lazily pulling, she directing his course at
intervals by a movement of her distractingly pretty head. How was this
condition of affairs to be explained? Well, they were both young; they both
had superb health, and all the ardour of youth; and—they were together.
The boat was very small indeed; her face was scarcely a yard from his.
She, in his eyes, surrounded by the glamour of beauty and vast wealth; he,
in her eyes, surrounded by the glamour of masculine intrepidity and the
brilliance of a throne.
But all voyages come to an end, either at the shore or at the bottom of the
sea, and at length the dinghy passed between the stone jetties of the harbour.
The Prince rowed to the nearest steps, tied up the boat, and they landed. It
was six o’clock in the morning, and a day of gorgeous sunlight had opened.
Few people were about at that early hour.
‘And now, what next?’ said the Prince. ‘I must take you to an hotel.’
‘I am in your hands,’ she acquiesced, with a smile which sent the blood
racing through his veins. He perceived now that she was tired and
overcome, suffering from a sudden and natural reaction.
At the Hôtel Wellington the Prince told the sleepy door-keeper that they
had come by the early train from Bruges, and wanted breakfast at once. It
was absurdly early, but a common English sovereign will work wonders in
any Belgian hotel, and in a very brief time Nella and the Prince were
breakfasting on the verandah of the hotel upon chocolate that had been
specially and hastily brewed for them.
‘I never tasted such excellent chocolate,’ claimed the Prince.
The statement was wildly untrue, for the Hôtel Wellington is not
celebrated for its chocolate. Nevertheless Nella replied enthusiastically,
‘Nor I.’
Then there was a silence, and Nella, feeling possibly that she had been
too ecstatic, remarked in a very matter-of-fact tone: ‘I must telegraph to
Papa instantly.’

Thus it was that Theodore Racksole received the telegram which drew
him away from Detective Marshall.

Chapter Sixteen THE WOMAN WITH THE RED
HAT
‘THERE is one thing, Prince, that we have just got to settle straight off,’
said Theodore Racksole.
They were all three seated—Racksole, his daughter, and Prince Aribert—
round a dinner table in a private room at the Hôtel Wellington. Racksole
had duly arrived by the afternoon boat, and had been met on the quay by the
other two. They had dined early, and Racksole had heard the full story of
the adventures by sea and land of Nella and the Prince. As to his own
adventure of the previous night he said very little, merely explaining, with
as little detail as possible, that Dimmock’s body had come to light.
‘What is that?’ asked the Prince, in answer to Racksole’s remark.
‘We have got to settle whether we shall tell the police at once all that has
occurred, or whether we shall proceed on our own responsibility. There can
be no doubt as to which course we ought to pursue. Every consideration of
prudence points to the advisability of taking the police into our confidence,
and leaving the matter entirely in their hands.’
‘Oh, Papa!’ Nella burst out in her pouting, impulsive way. ‘You surely
can’t think of such a thing. Why, the fun has only just begun.’
‘Do you call last night fun?’ questioned Racksole, gazing at her solemnly.
‘Yes, I do,’ she said promptly. ‘Now.’
‘Well, I don’t,’ was the millionaire’s laconic response; but perhaps he was
thinking of his own situation in the lift.
‘Do you not think we might investigate a little further,’ said the Prince
judiciously, as he cracked a walnut, ‘just a little further—and then, if we fail
to accomplish anything, there would still be ample opportunity to consult
the police?’
‘How do you suggest we should begin?’ asked Racksole.
‘Well, there is the house which Miss Racksole so intrepidly entered last
evening’—he gave her the homage of an admiring glance; ‘you and I, Mr
Racksole, might examine that abode in detail.’

‘To-night?’
‘Certainly. We might do something.’
‘We might do too much.’
‘For example?’
‘We might shoot someone, or get ourselves mistaken for burglars. If we
outstepped the law, it would be no excuse for us that we had been acting in
a good cause.’
‘True,’ said the Prince. ‘Nevertheless—’ He stopped.
‘Nevertheless you have a distaste for bringing the police into the
business.
You want the hunt all to yourself. You are on fire with the ardour of the
chase. Is not that it? Accept the advice of an older man, Prince, and sleep on
this affair. I have little fancy for nocturnal escapades two nights together. As
for you, Nella, off with you to bed. The Prince and I will have a yarn over
such fluids as can be obtained in this hole.’
‘Papa,’ she said, ‘you are perfectly horrid to-night.’
‘Perhaps I am,’ he said. ‘Decidedly I am very cross with you for coming
over here all alone. It was monstrous. If I didn’t happen to be the most
foolish of parents—There! Good-night. It’s nine o’clock. The Prince, I am
sure, will excuse you.’
If Nella had not really been very tired Prince Aribert might have been the
witness of a good-natured but stubborn conflict between the millionaire and
his spirited offspring. As it was, Nella departed with surprising docility, and
the two men were left alone.
‘Now,’ said Racksole suddenly, changing his tone, ‘I fancy that after all
I’m your man for a little amateur investigation to-night. And, if I must
speak the exact truth, I think that to sleep on this affair would be about the
very worst thing we could do. But I was anxious to keep Nella out of
harm’s way at any rate till to-morrow. She is a very difficult creature to
manage, Prince, and I may warn you,’ he laughed grimly, ‘that if we do
succeed in doing anything to-night we shall catch it from her ladyship in the
morning. Are you ready to take that risk?’
‘I am,’ the Prince smiled. ‘But Miss Racksole is a young lady of quite
remarkable nerve.’

‘She is,’ said Racksole drily. ‘I wish sometimes she had less.’
‘I have the highest admiration for Miss Racksole,’ said the Prince, and he
looked Miss Racksole’s father full in the face.
‘You honour us, Prince,’ Racksole observed. ‘Let us come to business.
Am I right in assuming that you have a reason for keeping the police out of
this business, if it can possibly be done?’
‘Yes,’ said the Prince, and his brow clouded. ‘I am very much afraid that
my poor nephew has involved himself in some scrape that he would wish
not to be divulged.’
‘Then you do not believe that he is the victim of foul play?’
‘I do not.’
‘And the reason, if I may ask it?’
‘Mr Racksole, we speak in confidence—is it not so? Some years ago my
foolish nephew had an affair—an affair with a feminine star of the Berlin
stage. For anything I know, the lady may have been the very pattern of her
sex, but where a reigning Prince is concerned scandal cannot be avoided in
such a matter. I had thought that the affair was quite at an end, since my
nephew’s betrothal to Princess Anna of Eckstein-Schwartzburg is shortly to
be announced. But yesterday I saw the lady to whom I have referred driving
on the Digue. The coincidence of her presence here with my nephew’s
disappearance is too extraordinary to be disregarded.’
‘But how does this theory square with the murder of Reginald
Dimmock?’
‘It does not square with it. My idea is that the murder of poor Dimmock
and the disappearance of my nephew are entirely unconnected—unless,
indeed, this Berlin actress is playing into the hands of the murderers. I had
not thought of that.’
‘Then what do you propose to do to-night?’
‘I propose to enter the house which Miss Racksole entered last night and
to find out something definite.’
‘I concur,’ said Racksole. ‘I shall heartily enjoy it. But let me tell you,
Prince, and pardon me for speaking bluntly, your surmise is incorrect. I
would wager a hundred thousand dollars that Prince Eugen has been
kidnapped.’

‘What grounds have you for being so sure?’
‘Ah! said Racksole, ‘that is a long story. Let me begin by asking you this.
Are you aware that your nephew, Prince Eugen, owes a million of
money?’
‘A million of money!’ cried Prince Aribert astonished. ‘It is impossible!’
‘Nevertheless, he does,’ said Racksole calmly. Then he told him all he
had learnt from Mr Sampson Levi.
‘What have you to say to that?’ Racksole ended. Prince Aribert made no
reply.
‘What have you to say to that?’ Racksole insisted.
‘Merely that Eugen is ruined, even if he is alive.’
‘Not at all,’ Racksole returned with cheerfulness. ‘Not at all. We shall see
about that. The special thing that I want to know just now from you is this:
Has any previous application ever been made for the hand of the Princess
Anna?’
‘Yes. Last year. The King of Bosnia sued for it, but his proposal was
declined.’
‘Why?’
‘Because my nephew was considered to be a more suitable match for
her.’
‘Not because the personal character of his Majesty of Bosnia is scarcely
of the brightest?’
‘No. Unfortunately it is usually impossible to consider questions of
personal character when a royal match is concerned.’
‘Then, if for any reason the marriage of Princess Anna with your nephew
was frustrated, the King of Bosnia would have a fair chance in that
quarter?’
‘He would. The political aspect of things would be perfectly satisfactory.’
‘Thanks!’ said Racksole. ‘I will wager another hundred thousand dollars
that someone in Bosnia—I don’t accuse the King himself—is at the bottom
of this business. The methods of Balkan politicians have always been half-
Oriental. Let us go.’
‘Where?’

‘To this precious house of Nella’s adventure.’
‘But surely it is too early?’
‘So it is,’ said Racksole, ‘and we shall want a few things, too. For
instance, a dark lantern. I think I will go out and forage for a lantern.’
‘And a revolver?’ suggested Prince Aribert.
‘Does it mean revolvers?’ The millionaire laughed. ‘It may come to that.’
‘Here you are, then, my friend,’ said Racksole, and he pulled one out of his
hip pocket. ‘And yours?’
‘I,’ said the Prince, ‘I have your daughter’s.’
‘The deuce you have!’ murmured Racksole to himself.
It was then half past nine. They decided that it would be impolitic to
begin their operations till after midnight. There were three hours to spare.
‘Let us go and see the gambling,’ Racksole suggested. ‘We might
encounter the Berlin lady.’
The suggestion, in the first instance, was not made seriously, but it
appeared to both men that they might do worse than spend the intervening
time in the gorgeous saloon of the Kursaal, where, in the season, as much
money is won and lost as at Monte Carlo. It was striking ten o’clock as they
entered the rooms. There was a large company present—a company which
included some of the most notorious persons in Europe. In that multifarious
assemblage all were equal. The electric light shone coldly and impartially
on the just and on the unjust, on the fool and the knave, on the European
and the Asiatic. As usual, women monopolized the best places at the tables.
The scene was familiar enough to Prince Aribert, who had witnessed it
frequently at Monaco, but Theodore Racksole had never before entered any
European gaming palace; he had only the haziest idea of the rules of play,
and he was at once interested. For some time they watched the play at the
table which happened to be nearest to them. Racksole never moved his lips.
With his eyes glued on the table, and ears open for every remark, of the
players and the croupier, he took his first lesson in roulette. He saw a mere
youth win fifteen thousand francs, which were stolen in the most barefaced
manner by a rouged girl scarcely older than the youth; he saw two old
gamesters stake their coins, and lose, and walk quietly out of the place; he
saw the bank win fifty thousand francs at a single turn.

‘This is rather good fun,’ he said at length, ‘but the stakes are too small to
make it really exciting. I’ll try my luck, just for the experience. I’m bound
to win.’
‘Why?’ asked the Prince.
‘Because I always do, in games of chance,’ Racksole answered with gay
confidence. ‘It is my fate. Then to-night, you must remember, I shall be a
beginner, and you know the tyro’s luck.’
In ten minutes the croupier of that table was obliged to suspend
operations pending the arrival of a further supply of coin.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Racksole, leading the way to another table
further up the room. A hundred curious glances went after him. One old
woman, whose gay attire suggested a false youthfulness, begged him in
French to stake a five-franc piece for her. She offered him the coin. He took
it, and gave her a hundred-franc note in exchange. She clutched the crisp
rustling paper, and with hysterical haste scuttled back to her own table.
At the second table there was a considerable air of excitement. In the
forefront of the players was a woman in a low-cut evening dress of black
silk and a large red picture hat. Her age appeared to be about twenty-eight;
she had dark eyes, full lips, and a distinctly Jewish nose. She was
handsome, but her beauty was of that forbidding, sinister order which is
often called Junoesque. This woman was the centre of attraction. People
said to each other that she had won a hundred and sixty thousand francs that
day at the table.
‘You were right,’ Prince Aribert whispered to Theodore Racksole; ‘that is
the Berlin lady.’
‘The deuce she is! Has she seen you? Will she know you?’
‘She would probably know me, but she hasn’t looked up yet.’
‘Keep behind her, then. I propose to find her a little occupation.’ By dint
of a carefully-exercised diplomacy, Racksole manoeuvred himself into a
seat opposite to the lady in the red hat. The fame of his success at the other
table had followed him, and people regarded him as a serious and
formidable player. In the first turn the lady put a thousand francs on double
zero; Racksole put a hundred on number nineteen and a thousand on the
odd numbers.

Nineteen won. Racksole received four thousand four hundred francs.
Nine times in succession Racksole backed number nineteen and the odd
numbers; nine times the lady backed double zero. Nine times Racksole won
and the lady lost. The other players, perceiving that the affair had resolved
itself into a duel, stood back for the most part and watched those two.
Prince Aribert never stirred from his position behind the great red hat. The
game continued. Racksole lost trifles from time to time, but ninety-nine
hundredths of the luck was with him. As an English spectator at the table
remarked, ‘he couldn’t do wrong.’ When midnight struck the lady in the red
hat was reduced to a thousand francs. Then she fell into a winning vein for
half an hour, but at one o’clock her resources were exhausted. Of the
hundred and sixty thousand francs which she was reputed to have had early
in the evening, Racksole held about ninety thousand, and the bank had the
rest.
It was a calamity for the Juno of the red hat. She jumped up, stamped her
foot, and hurried from the room. At a discreet distance Racksole and the
Prince pursued her.
‘It might be well to ascertain her movements,’ said Racksole.
Outside, in the glare of the great arc lights, and within sound of the surf
which beats always at the very foot of the Kursaal, the Juno of the red hat
summoned a fiacre and drove rapidly away. Racksole and the Prince took
an open carriage and started in pursuit. They had not, however, travelled
more than half a mile when Prince Aribert stopped the carriage, and,
bidding Racksole get out, paid the driver and dismissed him.
‘I feel sure I know where she is going,’ he explained, ‘and it will be
better for us to follow on foot.’
‘You mean she is making for the scene of last night’s affair?’ said
Racksole.
‘Exactly. We shall—what you call, kill two birds with one stone.’
Prince Aribert’s guess was correct. The lady’s carriage stopped in front of
the house where Nella Racksole and Miss Spencer had had their interview
on the previous evening, and the lady vanished into the building just as the
two men appeared at the end of the street. Instead of proceeding along that
street, the Prince led Racksole to the lane which gave on to the backs of the
houses, and he counted the houses as they went up the lane. In a few
minutes they had burglariously climbed over a wall, and crept, with infinite

caution, up a long, narrow piece of ground—half garden, half paved yard,
till they crouched under a window—a window which was shielded by
curtains, but which had been left open a little.
‘Listen,’ said the Prince in his lightest whisper, ‘they are talking.’
‘Who?’
‘The Berlin lady and Miss Spencer. I’m sure it’s Miss Spencer’s voice.’
Racksole boldly pushed the french window a little wider open, and put
his ear to the aperture, through which came a beam of yellow light.
‘Take my place,’ he whispered to the Prince, ‘they’re talking German.
You’ll understand better.’
Silently they exchanged places under the window, and the Prince listened
intently.
‘Then you refuse?’ Miss Spencer’s visitor was saying.
There was no answer from Miss Spencer.
‘Not even a thousand francs? I tell you I’ve lost the whole twenty-five
thousand.’
Again no answer.
‘Then I’ll tell the whole story,’ the lady went on, in an angry rush of
words. ‘I did what I promised to do. I enticed him here, and you’ve got him
safe in your vile cellar, poor little man, and you won’t give me a paltry
thousand francs.’
‘You have already had your price.’ The words were Miss Spencer’s. They
fell cold and calm on the night air.
‘I want another thousand.’
‘I haven’t it.’
‘Then we’ll see.’
Prince Aribert heard a rustle of flying skirts; then another movement—a
door banged, and the beam of light through the aperture of the window
suddenly disappeared. He pushed the window wide open. The room was in
darkness, and apparently empty.
‘Now for that lantern of yours,’ he said eagerly to Theodore Racksole,
after he had translated to him the conversation of the two women, Racksole

produced the dark lantern from the capacious pocket of his dust coat, and
lighted it. The ray flashed about the ground.
‘What is it?’ exclaimed Prince Aribert with a swift cry, pointing to the
ground. The lantern threw its light on a perpendicular grating at their feet,
through which could be discerned a cellar. They both knelt down, and
peered into the subterranean chamber. On a broken chair a young man sat
listlessly with closed eyes, his head leaning heavily forward on his chest.
In the feeble light of the lantern he had the livid and ghastly appearance
of a corpse.
‘Who can it be?’ said Racksole.
‘It is Eugen,’ was the Prince’s low answer.

Chapter Seventeen THE RELEASE OF PRINCE
EUGEN
‘EUGEN,’ Prince Aribert called softly. At the sound of his own name the
young man in the cellar feebly raised his head and stared up at the grating
which separated him from his two rescuers. But his features showed no
recognition. He gazed in an aimless, vague, silly manner for a few seconds,
his eyes blinking under the glare of the lantern, and then his head slowly
drooped again on to his chest. He was dressed in a dark tweed travelling
suit, and Racksole observed that one sleeve—the left—was torn across the
upper part of the cuff, and that there were stains of dirt on the left shoulder.
A soiled linen collar, which had lost all its starch and was half unbuttoned,
partially encircled the captive’s neck; his brown boots were unlaced; a cap,
a handkerchief, a portion of a watch-chain, and a few gold coins lay on the
floor. Racksole flashed the lantern into the corners of the cellar, but he
could discover no other furniture except the chair on which the Hereditary
Prince of Posen sat and a small deal table on which were a plate and a cup.
‘Eugen,’ cried Prince Aribert once more, but this time his forlorn nephew
made no response whatever, and then Aribert added in a low voice to
Racksole: ‘Perhaps he cannot see us clearly.’
‘But he must surely recognize your voice,’ said Racksole, in a hard,
gloomy tone. There was a pause, and the two men above ground looked at
each other hesitatingly. Each knew that they must enter that cellar and get
Prince Eugen out of it, and each was somehow afraid to take the next step.
‘Thank God he is not dead!’ said Aribert.
‘He may be worse than dead!’ Racksole replied.
‘Worse than—What do you mean?’
‘I mean—he may be mad.’
‘Come,’ Aribert almost shouted, with a sudden access of energy—a wild
impulse for action. And, snatching the lantern from Racksole, he rushed
into the dark room where they had heard the conversation of Miss Spencer
and the lady in the red hat. For a moment Racksole did not stir from the

threshold of the window. ‘Come,’ Prince Aribert repeated, and there was an
imperious command in his utterance. ‘What are you afraid of?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Racksole, feeling stupid and queer; ‘I don’t know.’
Then he marched heavily after Prince Aribert into the room. On the
mantelpiece were a couple of candles which had been blown out, and in a
mechanical, unthinking way, Racksole lighted them, and the two men
glanced round the room. It presented no peculiar features: it was just an
ordinary room, rather small, rather mean, rather shabby, with an ugly
wallpaper and ugly pictures in ugly frames. Thrown over a chair was a
man’s evening-dress jacket. The door was closed. Prince Aribert turned the
knob, but he could not open it.
‘It’s locked,’ he said. ‘Evidently they know we’re here.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Racksole brusquely; ‘how can they know?’ And, taking
hold of the knob, he violently shook the door, and it opened. ‘I told you it
wasn’t locked,’ he added, and this small success of opening the door
seemed to steady the man. It was a curious psychological effect, this
terrorizing (for it amounted to that) of two courageous full-grown men by
the mere apparition of a helpless creature in a cellar. Gradually they both
recovered from it. The next moment they were out in the passage which led
to the front door of the house. The front door stood open. They looked into
the street, up and down, but there was not a soul in sight. The street, lighted
by three gas-lamps only, seemed strangely sinister and mysterious.
‘She has gone, that’s clear,’ said Racksole, meaning the woman with the
red hat.
‘And Miss Spencer after her, do you think?’ questioned Aribert.
‘No. She would stay. She would never dare to leave. Let us find the cellar
steps.’
The cellar steps were happily not difficult to discover, for in moving a
pace backwards Prince Aribert had a narrow escape of precipitating himself
to the bottom of them. The lantern showed that they were built on a curve.
Silently Racksole resumed possession of the lantern and went first, the
Prince close behind him. At the foot was a short passage, and in this
passage crouched the figure of a woman. Her eyes threw back the rays of
the lantern, shining like a cat’s at midnight. Then, as the men went nearer,
they saw that it was Miss Spencer who barred their way. She seemed half to

kneel on the stone floor, and in one hand she held what at first appeared to
be a dagger, but which proved to be nothing more romantic than a rather
long bread-knife.
‘I heard you, I heard you,’ she exclaimed. ‘Get back; you mustn’t come
here.’
There was a desperate and dangerous look on her face, and her form
shook with scarcely controlled passionate energy.
‘Now see here, Miss Spencer,’ Racksole said calmly, ‘I guess we’ve had
enough of this fandango. You’d better get up and clear out, or we’ll just
have to drag you off.’
He went calmly up to her, the lantern in his hand. Without another word
she struck the knife into his arm, and the lantern fell extinguished. Racksole
gave a cry, rather of angry surprise than of pain, and retreated a few steps.
In the darkness they could still perceive the glint of her eyes.
‘I told you you mustn’t come here,’ the woman said. ‘Now get back.’
Racksole positively laughed. It was a queer laugh, but he laughed, and he
could not help it. The idea of this woman, this bureau clerk, stopping his
progress and that of Prince Aribert by means of a bread-knife aroused his
sense of humour. He struck a match, relighted the candle, and faced Miss
Spencer once more.
‘I’ll do it again,’ she said, with a note of hard resolve.
‘Oh, no, you won’t, my girl,’ said Racksole; and he pulled out his
revolver, cocked it, raised his hand.
‘Put down that plaything of yours,’ he said firmly.
‘No,’ she answered.
‘I shall shoot.’
She pressed her lips together.
‘I shall shoot,’ he repeated. ‘One—two—three.’
Bang, bang! He had fired twice, purposely missing her. Miss Spencer
never blenched. Racksole was tremendously surprised—and he would have
been a thousandfold more surprised could he have contrasted her behaviour
now with her abject terror on the previous evening when Nella had
threatened her.

‘You’ve got a bit of pluck,’ he said, ‘but it won’t help you. Why won’t
you let us pass?’
As a matter of fact, pluck was just what she had not, really; she had
merely subordinated one terror to another. She was desperately afraid of
Racksole’s revolver, but she was much more afraid of something else.
‘Why won’t you let us pass?’
‘I daren’t,’ she said, with a plaintive tremor; ‘Tom put me in charge.’
That was all. The men could see tears running down her poor wrinkled
face.
Theodore Racksole began to take off his light overcoat.
‘I see I must take my coat off to you,’ he said, and he almost smiled.
Then, with a quick movement, he threw the coat over Miss Spencer’s head
and flew at her, seizing both her arms, while Prince Aribert assisted.
Her struggles ceased—she was beaten.
‘That’s all right,’ said Racksole: ‘I could never have used that revolver—
to mean business with it, of course.’
They carried her, unresisting, upstairs and on to the upper floor, where
they locked her in a bedroom. She lay in the bed as if exhausted.
‘Now for my poor Eugen,’ said Prince Aribert.
‘Don’t you think we’d better search the house first?’ Racksole suggested;
‘it will be safer to know just how we stand. We can’t afford any ambushes
or things of that kind, you know.’
The Prince agreed, and they searched the house from top to bottom, but
found no one. Then, having locked the front door and the french window of
the sitting-room, they proceeded again to the cellar.
Here a new obstacle confronted them. The cellar door was, of course,
locked; there was no sign of a key, and it appeared to be a heavy door. They
were compelled to return to the bedroom where Miss Spencer was
incarcerated, in order to demand the key of the cellar from her. She still lay
without movement on the bed.
‘Tom’s got it,’ she replied, faintly, to their question: ‘Tom’s got it, I swear
to you. He took it for safety.’
‘Then how do you feed your prisoner?’ Racksole asked sharply.
‘Through the grating,’ she answered.

Both men shuddered. They felt she was speaking the truth. For the third
time they went to the cellar door. In vain Racksole thrust himself against it;
he could do no more than shake it.
‘Let’s try both together,’ said Prince Aribert. ‘Now!’ There was a crack.
‘Again,’ said Prince Aribert. There was another crack, and then the upper
hinge gave way. The rest was easy. Over the wreck of the door they entered
Prince Eugen’s prison.
The captive still sat on his chair. The terrific noise and bustle of breaking
down the door seemed not to have aroused him from his lethargy, but when
Prince Aribert spoke to him in German he looked at his uncle.
‘Will you not come with us, Eugen?’ said Prince Aribert; ‘you needn’t
stay here any longer, you know.’
‘Leave me alone,’ was the strange reply; ‘leave me alone. What do you
want?’
‘We are here to get you out of this scrape,’ said Aribert gently. Racksole
stood aside.
‘Who is that fellow?’ said Eugen sharply.
‘That is my friend Mr Racksole, an Englishman—or rather, I should say,
an American—to whom we owe a great deal. Come and have supper,
Eugen.’
‘I won’t,’ answered Eugen doggedly. ‘I’m waiting here for her. You
didn’t think anyone had kept me here, did you, against my will? I tell you
I’m waiting for her. She said she’d come.’
‘Who is she?’ Aribert asked, humouring him.
‘She! Why, you know! I forgot, of course, you don’t know. You mustn’t
ask.
Don’t pry, Uncle Aribert. She was wearing a red hat.’
‘I’ll take you to her, my dear Eugen.’ Prince Aribert put his hands on the
other’s shoulder, but Eugen shook him off violently, stood up, and then sat
down again.
Aribert looked at Racksole, and they both looked at Prince Eugen. The
latter’s face was flushed, and Racksole observed that the left pupil was
more dilated than the right. The man started, muttered odd, fragmentary
scraps of sentences, now grumbling, now whining.

‘His mind is unhinged,’ Racksole whispered in English.
‘Hush!’ said Prince Aribert. ‘He understands English.’ But Prince Eugen
took no notice of the brief colloquy.
‘We had better get him upstairs, somehow,’ said Racksole.
‘Yes,’ Aribert assented. ‘Eugen, the lady with the red hat, the lady you are
waiting for, is upstairs. She has sent us down to ask you to come up. Won’t
you come?’
‘Himmel!’ the poor fellow exclaimed, with a kind of weak anger. ‘Why
did you not say this before?’
He rose, staggered towards Aribert, and fell headlong on the floor. He
had swooned. The two men raised him, carried him up the stone steps, and
laid him with infinite care on a sofa. He lay, breathing queerly through the
nostrils, his eyes closed, his fingers contracted; every now and then a
convulsion ran through his frame.
‘One of us must fetch a doctor,’ said Prince Aribert.
‘I will,’ said Racksole. At that moment there was a quick, curt rap on the
french window, and both Racksole and the Prince glanced round startled. A
girl’s face was pressed against the large window-pane. It was Nella’s.
Racksole unfastened the catch, and she entered.
‘I have found you,’ she said lightly; ‘you might have told me. I couldn’t
sleep. I inquired from the hotel-folks if you had retired, and they said no; so
I slipped out. I guessed where you were.’ Racksole interrupted her with a
question as to what she meant by this escapade, but she stopped him with a
careless gesture. ‘What’s this?’ She pointed to the form on the sofa.
‘That is my nephew, Prince Eugen,’ said Aribert.
‘Hurt?’ she inquired coldly. ‘I hope not.’
‘He is ill,’ said Racksole, ‘his brain is turned.’
Nella began to examine the unconscious Prince with the expert
movements of a girl who had passed through the best hospital course to be
obtained in New York.
‘He has got brain fever,’ she said. ‘That is all, but it will be enough. Do
you know if there is a bed anywhere in this remarkable house?’

Chapter Eighteen IN THE NIGHT-TIME
‘HE must on no account be moved,’ said the dark little Belgian doctor,
whose eyes seemed to peer so quizzically through his spectacles; and he
said it with much positiveness.
That pronouncement rather settled their plans for them. It was certainly a
professional triumph for Nella, who, previous to the doctor’s arrival, had
told them the very same thing. Considerable argument had passed before
the doctor was sent for. Prince Aribert was for keeping the whole affair a
deep secret among their three selves. Theodore Racksole agreed so far, but
he suggested further that at no matter what risk they should transport the
patient over to England at once. Racksole had an idea that he should feel
safer in that hotel of his, and better able to deal with any situation that
might arise. Nella scorned the idea. In her quality of an amateur nurse, she
assured them that Prince Eugen was much more seriously ill than either of
them suspected, and she urged that they should take absolute possession of
the house, and keep possession till Prince Eugen was convalescent.
‘But what about the Spencer female?’ Racksole had said.
‘Keep her where she is. Keep her a prisoner. And hold the house against
all comers. If Jules should come back, simply defy him to enter—that is all.
There are two of you, so you must keep an eye on the former occupiers,
if they return, and on Miss Spencer, while I nurse the patient. But first, you
must send for a doctor.’
‘Doctor!’ Prince Aribert had said, alarmed. ‘Will it not be necessary to
make some awkward explanation to the doctor?’
‘Not at all!’ she replied. ‘Why should it be? In a place like Ostend
doctors are far too discreet to ask questions; they see too much to retain
their curiosity. Besides, do you want your nephew to die?’
Both the men were somewhat taken aback by the girl’s sagacious grasp
of the situation, and it came about that they began to obey her like
subordinates.
She told her father to sally forth in search of a doctor, and he went. She
gave Prince Aribert certain other orders, and he promptly executed them.

By the evening of the following day, everything was going smoothly. The
doctor came and departed several times, and sent medicine, and seemed
fairly optimistic as to the issue of the illness. An old woman had been
induced to come in and cook and clean. Miss Spencer was kept out of sight
on the attic floor, pending some decision as to what to do with her. And no
one outside the house had asked any questions. The inhabitants of that
particular street must have been accustomed to strange behaviour on the
part of their neighbours, unaccountable appearances and disappearances,
strange flittings and arrivals. This strong-minded and active trio—Racksole,
Nella, and Prince Aribert—might have been the lawful and accustomed
tenants of the house, for any outward evidence to the contrary.
On the afternoon of the third day Prince Eugen was distinctly and
seriously worse. Nella had sat up with him the previous night and
throughout the day.
Her father had spent the morning at the hotel, and Prince Aribert had kept
watch. The two men were never absent from the house at the same time,
and one of them always did duty as sentinel at night. On this afternoon
Prince Aribert and Nella sat together in the patient’s bedroom. The doctor
had just left. Theodore Racksole was downstairs reading the New York
Herald. The Prince and Nella were near the window, which looked on to the
back-garden.
It was a queer shabby little bedroom to shelter the august body of a
European personage like Prince Eugen of Posen. Curiously enough, both
Nella and her father, ardent democrats though they were, had been
somehow impressed by the royalty and importance of the fever-stricken
Prince—impressed as they had never been by Aribert. They had both felt
that here, under their care, was a species of individuality quite new to them,
and different from anything they had previously encountered. Even the
gestures and tones of his delirium had an air of abrupt yet condescending
command—an imposing mixture of suavity and haughtiness. As for Nella,
she had been first struck by the beautiful ‘E’ over a crown on the sleeves of
his linen, and by the signet ring on his pale, emaciated hand. After all, these
trifling outward signs are at least as effective as others of deeper but less
obtrusive significance. The Racksoles, too, duly marked the attitude of
Prince Aribert to his nephew: it was at once paternal and reverential; it
disclosed clearly that Prince Aribert continued, in spite of everything, to

regard his nephew as his sovereign lord and master, as a being surrounded
by a natural and inevitable pomp and awe. This attitude, at the beginning,
seemed false and unreal to the Americans; it seemed to them to be assumed;
but gradually they came to perceive that they were mistaken, and that
though America might have cast out ‘the monarchial superstition’,
nevertheless that ‘superstition’ had vigorously survived in another part of
the world.
‘You and Mr Racksole have been extraordinarily kind to me,’ said Prince
Aribert very quietly, after the two had sat some time in silence.
‘Why? How?’ she asked unaffectedly. ‘We are interested in this affair
ourselves, you know. It began at our hotel—you mustn’t forget that, Prince.’
‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I forget nothing. But I cannot help feeling that I have
led you into a strange entanglement. Why should you and Mr Racksole be
here—you who are supposed to be on a holiday!—hiding in a strange house
in a foreign country, subject to all sorts of annoyances and all sorts of risks,
simply because I am anxious to avoid scandal, to avoid any sort of talk, in
connection with my misguided nephew? It is nothing to you that the
Hereditary Prince of Posen should be liable to a public disgrace. What will
it matter to you if the throne of Posen becomes the laughing-stock of
Europe?’
‘I really don’t know, Prince,’ Nella smiled roguishly. ‘But we Americans
have, a habit of going right through with anything we have begun.’
‘Ah!’ he said, ‘who knows how this thing will end? All our trouble, our
anxieties, our watchfulness, may come to nothing. I tell you that when I see
Eugen lying there, and think that we cannot learn his story until he recovers,
I am ready to go mad. We might be arranging things, making matters
smooth, preparing for the future, if only we knew—knew what he can tell
us. I tell you that I am ready to go mad. If anything should happen to you,
Miss Racksole, I would kill myself.’
‘But why?’ she questioned. ‘Supposing, that is, that anything could
happen to me—which it can’t.’
‘Because I have dragged you into this,’ he replied, gazing at her. ‘It is
nothing to you. You are only being kind.’
‘How do you know it is nothing to me, Prince?’ she asked him quickly.

Just then the sick man made a convulsive movement, and Nella flew to
the bed and soothed him. From the head of the bed she looked over at
Prince Aribert, and he returned her bright, excited glance. She was in her
travelling-frock, with a large white Belgian apron tied over it. Large dark
circles of fatigue and sleeplessness surrounded her eyes, and to the Prince
her cheek seemed hollow and thin; her hair lay thick over the temples, half
covering the ears. Aribert gave no answer to her query—merely gazed at
her with melancholy intensity.
‘I think I will go and rest,’ she said at last. ‘You will know all about the
medicine.’
‘Sleep well,’ he said, as he softly opened the door for her. And then he
was alone with Eugen. It was his turn that night to watch, for they still half-
expected some strange, sudden visit, or onslaught, or move of one kind or
another from Jules. Racksole slept in the parlour on the ground floor.
Nella had the front bedroom on the first floor; Miss Spencer was
immured in the attic; the last-named lady had been singularly quiet and
incurious, taking her food from Nella and asking no questions, the old
woman went at nights to her own abode in the purlieus of the harbour. Hour
after hour Aribert sat silent by his nephew’s bed-side, attending
mechanically to his wants, and every now and then gazing hard into the
vacant, anguished face, as if trying to extort from that mask the secrets
which it held. Aribert was tortured by the idea that if he could have only
half an hour’s, only a quarter of an hour’s, rational speech with Prince
Eugen, all might be cleared up and put right, and by the fact that that
rational talk was absolutely impossible on Eugen’s part until the fever had
run its course. As the minutes crept on to midnight the watcher, made
nervous by the intense, electrical atmosphere which seems always to
surround a person who is dangerously ill, grew more and more a prey to
vague and terrible apprehensions. His mind dwelt hysterically on the most
fatal possibilities.
He wondered what would occur if by any ill-chance Eugen should die in
that bed—how he would explain the affair to Posen and to the Emperor,
how he would justify himself. He saw himself being tried for murder,
sentenced (him—a Prince of the blood!), led to the scaffold... a scene
unparalleled in Europe for over a century! ... Then he gazed anew at the
sick man, and thought he saw death in every drawn feature of that agonized

face. He could have screamed aloud. His ears heard a peculiar resonant
boom. He started—it was nothing but the city clock striking twelve. But
there was another sound—a mysterious shuffle at the door. He listened; then
jumped from his chair. Nothing now! Nothing! But still he felt drawn to the
door, and after what seemed an interminable interval he went and opened it,
his heart beating furiously. Nella lay in a heap on the door mat. She was
fully dressed, but had apparently lost consciousness. He clutched at her
slender body, picked her up, carried her to the chair by the fire-place, and
laid her in it. He had forgotten all about Eugen.
‘What is it, my angel?’ he whispered, and then he kissed her—kissed her
twice. He could only look at her; he did not know what to do to succour her.
At last she opened her eyes and sighed.
‘Where am I?’ she asked vaguely, in a tremulous tone as she recognized
him. ‘Is it you? Did I do anything silly? Did I faint?’
‘What has happened? Were you ill?’ he questioned anxiously. He was
kneeling at her feet, holding her hand tight.
‘I saw Jules by the side of my bed,’ she murmured; ‘I’m sure I saw him;
he laughed at me. I had not undressed. I sprang up, frightened, but he had
gone, and then I ran downstairs—to you.’
‘You were dreaming,’ he soothed her.
‘Was I?’
‘You must have been. I have not heard a sound. No one could have
entered.
But if you like I will wake Mr Racksole.’
‘Perhaps I was dreaming,’ she admitted. ‘How foolish!’
‘You were over-tired,’ he said, still unconsciously holding her hand. They
gazed at each other. She smiled at him.
‘You kissed me,’ she said suddenly, and he blushed red and stood up
before her. ‘Why did you kiss me?’
‘Ah! Miss Racksole,’ he murmured, hurrying the words out. ‘Forgive me.
It is unforgivable, but forgive me. I was overpowered by my feelings. I did
not know what I was doing.’
‘Why did you kiss me?’ she repeated.
‘Because—Nella! I love you. I have no right to say it.’

‘Why have you no right to say it?’
‘If Eugen dies, I shall owe a duty to Posen—I shall be its ruler.’
‘Well!’ she said calmly, with an adorable confidence. ‘Papa is worth forty
millions. Would you not abdicate?’
‘Ah!’ he gave a low cry. ‘Will you force me to say these things? I could
not shirk my duty to Posen, and the reigning Prince of Posen can only
marry a Princess.’
‘But Prince Eugen will live,’ she said positively, ‘and if he lives—’
‘Then I shall be free. I would renounce all my rights to make you mine, if
—if—’
‘If what, Prince?’
‘If you would deign to accept my hand.’
‘Am I, then, rich enough?’
‘Nella!’ He bent down to her.
Then there was a crash of breaking glass. Aribert went to the window and
opened it. In the starlit gloom he could see that a ladder had been raised
against the back of the house. He thought he heard footsteps at the end of
the garden.
‘It was Jules,’ he exclaimed to Nella, and without another word rushed
upstairs to the attic. The attic was empty. Miss Spencer had mysteriously
vanished.

Chapter Nineteen ROYALTY AT THE GRAND
BABYLON
THE Royal apartments at the Grand Babylon are famous in the world of
hotels, and indeed elsewhere, as being, in their own way, unsurpassed.
Some of the palaces of Germany, and in particular those of the mad Ludwig
of Bavaria, may possess rooms and saloons which outshine them in
gorgeous luxury and the mere wild fairy-like extravagance of wealth; but
there is nothing, anywhere, even on Eighth Avenue, New York, which can
fairly be called more complete, more perfect, more enticing, or—not least
important—more comfortable.
The suite consists of six chambers—the ante-room, the saloon or
audience chamber, the dining-room, the yellow drawing-room (where
Royalty receives its friends), the library, and the State bedroom—to the last
of which we have already been introduced. The most important and most
impressive of these is, of course, the audience chamber, an apartment fifty
feet long by forty feet broad, with a superb outlook over the Thames, the
Shot Tower, and the higher signals of the South-Western Railway. The
decoration of this room is mainly in the German taste, since four out of
every six of its Royal occupants are of Teutonic blood; but its chief glory is
its French ceiling, a masterpiece by Fragonard, taken bodily from a certain
famous palace on the Loire. The walls are of panelled oak, with an eight-
foot dado of Arras cloth imitated from unique Continental examples. The
carpet, woven in one piece, is an antique specimen of the finest Turkish
work, and it was obtained, a bargain, by Felix Babylon, from an
impecunious Roumanian Prince. The silver candelabra, now fitted with
electric light, came from the Rhine, and each had a separate history. The
Royal chair—it is not etiquette to call it a throne, though it amounts to a
throne—was looted by Napoleon from an Austrian city, and bought by Felix
Babylon at the sale of a French collector. At each corner of the room stands
a gigantic grotesque vase of German faïence of the sixteenth century. These
were presented to Felix Babylon by William the First of Germany, upon the
conclusion of his first incognito visit to London in connection with the
French trouble of 1875.

There is only one picture in the audience chamber. It is a portrait of the
luckless but noble Dom Pedro, Emperor of the Brazils. Given to Felix
Babylon by Dom Pedro himself, it hangs there solitary and sublime as a
reminder to Kings and Princes that Empires may pass away and greatness
fall. A certain Prince who was occupying the suite during the Jubilee of
1887—when the Grand Babylon had seven persons of Royal blood under its
roof—sent a curt message to Felix that the portrait must be removed. Felix
respectfully declined to remove it, and the Prince left for another hotel,
where he was robbed of two thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery. The
Royal audience chamber of the Grand Babylon, if people only knew it, is
one of the sights of London, but it is never shown, and if you ask the hotel
servants about its wonders they will tell you only foolish facts concerning
it, as that the Turkey carpet costs fifty pounds to clean, and that one of the
great vases is cracked across the pedestal, owing to the rough treatment
accorded to it during a riotous game of Blind Man’s Buff, played one night
by four young Princesses, a Balkan King, and his aides-de-camp.
In one of the window recesses of this magnificent apartment, on a certain
afternoon in late July, stood Prince Aribert of Posen. He was faultlessly
dressed in the conventional frock-coat of English civilization, with a
gardenia in his button-hole, and the indispensable crease down the front of
the trousers. He seemed to be fairly amused, and also to expect someone,
for at frequent intervals he looked rapidly over his shoulder in the direction
of the door behind the Royal chair. At last a little wizened, stooping old
man, with a distinctly German cast of countenance, appeared through the
door, and laid some papers on a small table by the side of the chair.
‘Ah, Hans, my old friend!’ said Aribert, approaching the old man. ‘I must
have a little talk with you about one or two matters. How do you find His
Royal Highness?’
The old man saluted, military fashion. ‘Not very well, your Highness,’ he
answered. ‘I’ve been valet to your Highness’s nephew since his majority,
and I was valet to his Royal father before him, but I never saw—’ He
stopped, and threw up his wrinkled hands deprecatingly.
‘You never saw what?’ Aribert smiled affectionately on the old fellow.
You could perceive that these two, so sharply differentiated in rank, had
been intimate in the past, and would be intimate again.

‘Do you know, my Prince,’ said the old man, ‘that we are to receive the
financier, Sampson Levi—is that his name?—in the audience chamber?
Surely, if I may humbly suggest, the library would have been good enough
for a financier?’
‘One would have thought so,’ agreed Prince Aribert, ‘but perhaps your
master has a special reason. Tell me,’ he went on, changing the subject
quickly, ‘how came it that you left the Prince, my nephew, at Ostend, and
returned to Posen?’
‘His orders, Prince,’ and old Hans, who had had a wide experience of
Royal whims and knew half the secrets of the Courts of Europe, gave
Aribert a look which might have meant anything. ‘He sent me back on an—
an errand, your Highness.’
‘And you were to rejoin him here?’
‘Just so, Highness. And I did rejoin him here, although, to tell the truth, I
had begun to fear that I might never see my master again.’
‘The Prince has been very ill in Ostend, Hans.’
‘So I have gathered,’ Hans responded drily, slowly rubbing his hands
together. ‘And his Highness is not yet perfectly recovered.’
‘Not yet. We despaired of his life, Hans, at one time, but thanks to an
excellent constitution, he came safely through the ordeal.’
‘We must take care of him, your Highness.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Aribert solemnly, ‘his life is very precious to Posen.’
At that moment, Eugen, Hereditary Prince of Posen, entered the audience
chamber. He was pale and languid, and his uniform seemed to be a trouble
to him. His hair had been slightly ruffled, and there was a look of
uneasiness, almost of alarmed unrest, in his fine dark eyes. He was like a
man who is afraid to look behind him lest he should see something there
which ought not to be there. But at the same time, here beyond doubt was
Royalty. Nothing could have been more striking than the contrast between
Eugen, a sick man in the shabby house at Ostend, and this Prince Eugen in
the Royal apartments of the Grand Babylon Hôtel, surrounded by the luxury
and pomp which modern civilization can offer to those born in high places.
All the desperate episode of Ostend was now hidden, passed over. It was
supposed never to have occurred. It existed only like a secret shame in the
hearts of those who had witnessed it. Prince Eugen had recovered; at any

rate, he was convalescent, and he had been removed to London, where he
took up again the dropped thread of his princely life. The lady with the red
hat, the incorruptible and savage Miss Spencer, the unscrupulous and
brilliant Jules, the dark, damp cellar, the horrible little bedroom—these
things were over. Thanks to Prince Aribert and the Racksoles, he had
emerged from them in safety. He was able to resume his public and official
career. The Emperor had been informed of his safe arrival in London, after
an unavoidable delay in Ostend; his name once more figured in the Court
chronicle of the newspapers. In short, everything was smothered over. Only
—only Jules, Rocco, and Miss Spencer were still at large; and the body of
Reginald Dimmock lay buried in the domestic mausoleum of the palace at
Posen; and Prince Eugen had still to interview Mr Sampson Levi.
That various matters lay heavy on the mind of Prince Eugen was beyond
question. He seemed to have withdrawn within himself. Despite the
extraordinary experiences through which he had recently passed, events
which called aloud for explanations and confidence between the nephew
and the uncle, he would say scarcely a word to Prince Aribert. Any allusion,
however direct, to the days at Ostend, was ignored by him with more or less
ingenuity, and Prince Aribert was really no nearer a full solution of the
mystery of Jules’ plot than he had been on the night when he and Racksole
visited the gaming tables at Ostend. Eugen was well aware that he had been
kidnapped through the agency of the woman in the red hat, but, doubtless
ashamed at having been her dupe, he would not proceed in any way with
the clearing-up of the matter.
‘You will receive in this room, Eugen?’ Aribert questioned him.
‘Yes,’ was the answer, given pettishly. ‘Why not? Even if I have no
proper retinue here, surely that is no reason why I should not hold audience
in a proper manner?... Hans, you can go.’ The old valet promptly
disappeared.
‘Aribert,’ the Hereditary Prince continued, when they were alone in the
chamber, ‘you think I am mad.’
‘My dear Eugen,’ said Prince Aribert, startled in spite of himself. ‘Don’t
be absurd.’
‘I say you think I am mad. You think that that attack of brain fever has
left its permanent mark on me. Well, perhaps I am mad. Who can tell? God
knows that I have been through enough lately to drive me mad.’

Aribert made no reply. As a matter of strict fact, the thought had crossed
his mind that Eugen’s brain had not yet recovered its normal tone and
activity. This speech of his nephew’s, however, had the effect of
immediately restoring his belief in the latter’s entire sanity. He felt
convinced that if only he could regain his nephew’s confidence, the old
brotherly confidence which had existed between them since the years when
they played together as boys, all might yet be well. But at present there
appeared to be no sign that Eugen meant to give his confidence to anyone.
The young Prince had come up out of the valley of the shadow of death,
but some of the valley’s shadow had clung to him, and it seemed he was
unable to dissipate it.
‘By the way,’ said Eugen suddenly, ‘I must reward these Racksoles, I
suppose. I am indeed grateful to them. If I gave the girl a bracelet, and the
father a thousand guineas—how would that meet the case?’
‘My dear Eugen!’ exclaimed Aribert aghast. ‘A thousand guineas! Do
you know that Theodore Racksole could buy up all Posen from end to end
without making himself a pauper. A thousand guineas! You might as well
offer him sixpence.’
‘Then what must I offer?’
‘Nothing, except your thanks. Anything else would be an insult. These
are no ordinary hotel people.’
‘Can’t I give the little girl a bracelet?’ Prince Eugen gave a sinister laugh.
Aribert looked at him steadily. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Why did you kiss her—that night?’ asked Prince Eugen carelessly.
‘Kiss whom?’ said Aribert, blushing and angry, despite his most
determined efforts to keep calm and unconcerned.
‘The Racksole girl.’
‘When do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ said Prince Eugen, ‘that night in Ostend when I was ill. You
thought I was in a delirium. Perhaps I was. But somehow I remember that
with extraordinary distinctness. I remember raising my head for a fraction
of an instant, and just in that fraction of an instant you kissed her. Oh, Uncle
Aribert!’
‘Listen, Eugen, for God’s sake. I love Nella Racksole. I shall marry her.’

‘You!’ There was a long pause, and then Eugen laughed. ‘Ah!’ he said.
‘They all talk like that to start with. I have talked like that myself, dear
uncle; it sounds nice, and it means nothing.’
‘In this case it means everything, Eugen,’ said Aribert quietly. Some
accent of determination in the latter’s tone made Eugen rather more serious.
‘You can’t marry her,’ he said. ‘The Emperor won’t permit a morganatic
marriage.’
‘The Emperor has nothing to do with the affair. I shall renounce my
rights.
I shall become a plain citizen.’
‘In which case you will have no fortune to speak of.’
‘But my wife will have a fortune. Knowing the sacrifices which I shall
have made in order to marry her, she will not hesitate to place that fortune
in my hands for our mutual use,’ said Aribert stiffly.
‘You will decidedly be rich,’ mused Eugen, as his ideas dwelt on
Theodore Racksole’s reputed wealth. ‘But have you thought of this,’ he
asked, and his mild eyes glowed again in a sort of madness. ‘Have you
thought that I am unmarried, and might die at any moment, and then the
throne will descend to you—to you, Aribert?’
‘The throne will never descend to me, Eugen,’ said Aribert softly, ‘for
you will live. You are thoroughly convalescent. You have nothing to fear.’
‘It is the next seven days that I fear,’ said Eugen.
‘The next seven days! Why?’
‘I do not know. But I fear them. If I can survive them—’
‘Mr Sampson Levi, sire,’ Hans announced in a loud tone.

Chapter Twenty MR SAMPSON LEVI BIDS
PRINCE EUGEN GOOD MORNING
PRINCE EUGEN started. ‘I will see him,’ he said, with a gesture to Hans
as if to indicate that Mr Sampson Levi might enter at once.
‘I beg one moment first,’ said Aribert, laying a hand gently on his
nephew’s arm, and giving old Hans a glance which had the effect of
precipitating that admirably trained servant through the doorway.
‘What is it?’ asked Prince Eugen crossly. ‘Why this sudden seriousness?
Don’t forget that I have an appointment with Mr Sampson Levi, and must
not keep him waiting. Someone said that punctuality is the politeness of
princes.’
‘Eugen,’ said Aribert, ‘I wish you to be as serious as I am. Why cannot
we have faith in each other? I want to help you. I have helped you. You are
my titular Sovereign; but on the other hand I have the honour to be your
uncle:
I have the honour to be the same age as you, and to have been your
companion from youth up. Give me your confidence. I thought you had
given it me years ago, but I have lately discovered that you had your
secrets, even then. And now, since your illness, you are still more secretive.’
‘What do you mean, Aribert?’ said Eugen, in a tone which might have
been either inimical or friendly. ‘What do you want to say?’
‘Well, in the first place, I want to say that you will not succeed with the
estimable Mr Sampson Levi.’
‘Shall I not?’ said Eugen lightly. ‘How do you know what my business is
with him?’
‘Suffice it to say that I know. You will never get that million pounds out
of him.’
Prince Eugen gasped, and then swallowed his excitement. ‘Who has been
talking? What million?’ His eyes wandered uneasily round the room. ‘Ah!’
he said, pretending to laugh. ‘I see how it is. I have been chattering in my

delirium. You mustn’t take any notice of that, Aribert. When one has a fever
one’s ideas become grotesque and fanciful.’
‘You never talked in your delirium,’ Aribert replied; ‘at least not about
yourself. I knew about this projected loan before I saw you in Ostend.’
‘Who told you?’ demanded Eugen fiercely.
‘Then you admit that you are trying to raise a loan?’
‘I admit nothing. Who told you?’
‘Theodore Racksole, the millionaire. These rich men have no secrets
from each other. They form a coterie, closer than any coterie of ours.
Eugen, and far more powerful. They talk, and in talking they rule the world,
these millionaires. They are the real monarchs.’
‘Curse them!’ said Eugen.
‘Yes, perhaps so. But let me return to your case. Imagine my shame, my
disgust, when I found that Racksole could tell me more about your affairs
than I knew myself. Happily, he is a good fellow; one can trust him;
otherwise I should have been tempted to do something desperate when I
discovered that all your private history was in his hands. Eugen, let us come
to the point; why do you want that million? Is it actually true that you are so
deeply in debt? I have no desire to improve the occasion. I merely ask.’
‘And what if I do owe a million?’ said Prince Eugen with assumed
valour.
‘Oh, nothing, my dear Eugen, nothing. Only it is rather a large sum to
have scattered in ten years, is it not? How did you manage it?’
‘Don’t ask me, Aribert. I’ve been a fool. But I swear to you that the
woman whom you call “the lady in the red hat” is the last of my follies. I
am about to take a wife, and become a respectable Prince.’
‘Then the engagement with Princess Anna is an accomplished fact?’
‘Practically so. As soon as I have settled with Levi, all will be smooth.
Aribert, I wouldn’t lose Anna for the Imperial throne. She is a good and
pure woman, and I love her as a man might love an angel.’
‘And yet you would deceive her as to your debts, Eugen?’
‘Not her, but her absurd parents, and perhaps the Emperor. They have
heard rumours, and I must set those rumours at rest by presenting to them a
clean sheet.’

‘I am glad you have been frank with me, Eugen,’ said Prince Aribert, ‘but
I will be plain with you. You will never marry the Princess Anna.’
‘And why?’ said Eugen, supercilious again.
‘Because her parents will not permit it. Because you will not be able to
present a clean sheet to them. Because this Sampson Levi will never lend
you a million.’
‘Explain yourself.’
‘I propose to do so. You were kidnapped—it is a horrid word, but we
must use it—in Ostend.’
‘True.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘I suppose because that vile old red-hatted woman and her accomplices
wanted to get some money out of me. Fortunately, thanks to you, they
didn’t.’
‘Not at all,’ said Aribert. ‘They wanted no money from you. They knew
well enough that you had no money. They knew you were the naughty
schoolboy among European Princes, with no sense of responsibility or of
duty towards your kingdom. Shall I tell you why they kidnapped you?’
‘When you have done abusing me, my dear uncle.’
‘They kidnapped you merely to keep you out of England for a few days,
merely to compel you to fail in your appointment with Sampson Levi. And
it appears to me that they succeeded. Assuming that you don’t obtain the
money from Levi, is there another financier in all Europe from whom you
can get it—on such strange security as you have to offer?’
‘Possibly there is not,’ said Prince Eugen calmly. ‘But, you see, I shall
get it from Sampson Levi. Levi promised it, and I know from other sources
that he is a man of his word. He said that the money, subject to certain
formalities, would be available till—’
‘Till?’
‘Till the end of June.’
‘And it is now the end of July.’
‘Well, what is a month? He is only too glad to lend the money. He will
get excellent interest. How on earth have you got into your sage old head

this notion of a plot against me? The idea is ridiculous. A plot against me?
What for?’
‘Have you ever thought of Bosnia?’ asked Aribert coldly.
‘What of Bosnia?’
‘I need not tell you that the King of Bosnia is naturally under obligations
to Austria, to whom he owes his crown. Austria is anxious for him to make
a good influential marriage.’
‘Well, let him.’
‘He is going to. He is going to marry the Princess Anna.’
‘Not while I live. He made overtures there a year ago, and was rebuffed.’
‘Yes; but he will make overtures again, and this time he will not be
rebuffed. Oh, Eugen! can’t you see that this plot against you is being
engineered by some persons who know all about your affairs, and whose
desire is to prevent your marriage with Princess Anna? Only one man in
Europe can have any motive for wishing to prevent your marriage with
Princess Anna, and that is the man who means to marry her himself.’ Eugen
went very pale.
‘Then, Aribert, do you mean to convey to me that my detention in Ostend
was contrived by the agents of the King of Bosnia?’
‘I do.’
‘With a view to stopping my negotiations with Sampson Levi, and so
putting an end to the possibility of my marriage with Anna?’
Aribert nodded.
‘You are a good friend to me, Aribert. You mean well. But you are
mistaken.
You have been worrying about nothing.’
‘Have you forgotten about Reginald Dimmock?’
‘I remember you said that he had died.’
‘I said nothing of the sort. I said that he had been assassinated. That was
part of it, my poor Eugen.’
‘Pooh!’ said Eugen. ‘I don’t believe he was assassinated. And as for
Sampson Levi, I will bet you a thousand marks that he and I come to terms

this morning, and that the million is in my hands before I leave London.’
Aribert shook his head.
‘You seem to be pretty sure of Mr Levi’s character. Have you had much
to do with him before?’
‘Well,’ Eugen hesitated a second, ‘a little. What young man in my
position hasn’t had something to do with Mr Sampson Levi at one time or
another?’
‘I haven’t,’ said Aribert.
‘You! You are a fossil.’ He rang a silver bell. ‘Hans! I will receive Mr
Sampson Levi.’
Whereupon Aribert discreetly departed, and Prince Eugen sat down in the
great velvet chair, and began to look at the papers which Hans had
previously placed upon the table.
‘Good morning, your Royal Highness,’ said Sampson Levi, bowing as he
entered. ‘I trust your Royal Highness is well.’
‘Moderately, thanks,’ returned the Prince.
In spite of the fact that he had had as much to do with people of Royal
blood as any plain man in Europe, Sampson Levi had never yet learned how
to be at ease with these exalted individuals during the first few minutes of
an interview. Afterwards, he resumed command of himself and his faculties,
but at the beginning he was invariably flustered, scarlet of face, and
inclined to perspiration.
‘We will proceed to business at once,’ said Prince Eugen. ‘Will you take
a seat, Mr Levi?’
‘I thank your Royal Highness.’
‘Now as to that loan which we had already practically arranged—a
million, I think it was,’ said the Prince airily.
‘A million,’ Levi acquiesced, toying with his enormous watch chain.
‘Everything is now in order. Here are the papers and I should like to
finish the matter up at once.’
‘Exactly, your Highness, but—’
‘But what? You months ago expressed the warmest satisfaction at the
security, though I am quite prepared to admit that the security, is of rather
an unusual nature. You also agreed to the rate of interest. It is not everyone,

Mr Levi, who can lend out a million at 5-1/2 per cent. And in ten years the
whole amount will be paid back. I—er—I believe I informed you that the
fortune of Princess Anna, who is about to accept my hand, will ultimately
amount to something like fifty millions of marks, which is over two million
pounds in your English money.’ Prince Eugen stopped. He had no fancy for
talking in this confidential manner to financiers, but he felt that
circumstances demanded it.
‘You see, it’s like this, your Royal Highness,’ began Mr Sampson Levi, in
his homely English idiom. ‘It’s like this. I said I could keep that bit of
money available till the end of June, and you were to give me an interview
here before that date. Not having heard from your Highness, and not
knowing your Highness’s address, though my German agents made every
inquiry, I concluded, that you had made other arrangements, money being
so cheap this last few months.’
‘I was unfortunately detained at Ostend,’ said Prince Eugen, with as
much haughtiness as he could assume, ‘by—by important business. I have
made no other arrangements, and I shall have need of the million. If you
will be so good as to pay it to my London bankers—’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said Mr Sampson Levi, with a tremendous and dazzling
air of politeness, which surprised even himself, ‘but my syndicate has now
lent the money elsewhere. It’s in South America—I don’t mind telling your
Highness that we’ve lent it to the Chilean Government.’
‘Hang the Chilean Government, Mr Levi,’ exclaimed the Prince, and he
went white. ‘I must have that million. It was an arrangement.’
‘It was an arrangement, I admit,’ said Mr Sampson Levi, ‘but your
Highness broke the arrangement.’
There was a long silence.
‘Do you mean to say,’ began the Prince with tense calmness, ‘that you are
not in a position to let me have that million?’
‘I could let your Highness have a million in a couple of years’ time.’
The Prince made a gesture of annoyance. ‘Mr Levi,’ he said, ‘if you do
not place the money in my hands to-morrow you will ruin one of the oldest
of reigning families, and, incidentally, you will alter the map of Europe.
You are not keeping faith, and I had relied on you.’

‘Pardon me, your Highness,’ said little Levi, rising in resentment, ‘it is
not I who have not kept faith. I beg to repeat that the money is no longer at
my disposal, and to bid your Highness good morning.’
And Mr Sampson Levi left the audience chamber with an awkward,
aggrieved bow. It was a scene characteristic of the end of the nineteenth
century—an overfed, commonplace, pursy little man who had been born in
a Brixton semi-detached villa, and whose highest idea of pleasure was a
Sunday up the river in an expensive electric launch, confronting and utterly
routing, in a hotel belonging to an American millionaire, the representative
of a race of men who had fingered every page of European history for
centuries, and who still, in their native castles, were surrounded with every
outward circumstance of pomp and power.
‘Aribert,’ said Prince Eugen, a little later, ‘you were right. It is all over. I
have only one refuge—’
‘You don’t mean—’ Aribert stopped, dumbfounded.
‘Yes, I do,’ he said quickly. ‘I can manage it so that it will look like an
accident.’

Chapter Twenty-One THE RETURN OF FÉLIX
BABYLON
ON the evening of Prince Eugen’s fateful interview with Mr Sampson
Levi, Theodore Racksole was wandering somewhat aimlessly and uneasily
about the entrance hall and adjacent corridors of the Grand Babylon. He had
returned from Ostend only a day or two previously, and had endeavoured
with all his might to forget the affair which had carried him there—to
regard it, in fact, as done with. But he found himself unable to do so. In
vain he remarked, under his breath, that there were some things which were
best left alone: if his experience as a manipulator of markets, a contriver of
gigantic schemes in New York, had taught him anything at all, it should
surely have taught him that. Yet he could not feel reconciled to such a
position. The mere presence of the princes in his hotel roused the fighting
instincts of this man, who had never in his whole career been beaten. He
had, as it were, taken up arms on their side, and if the princes of Posen
would not continue their own battle, nevertheless he, Theodore Racksole,
wanted to continue it for them. To a certain extent, of course, the battle had
been won, for Prince Eugen had been rescued from an extremely difficult
and dangerous position, and the enemy—consisting of Jules, Rocco, Miss
Spencer, and perhaps others—had been put to flight. But that, he conceived,
was not enough; it was very far from being enough. That the criminals, for
criminals they decidedly were, should still be at large, he regarded as an
absurd anomaly. And there was another point: he had said nothing to the
police of all that had occurred. He disdained the police, but he could
scarcely fail to perceive that if the police should by accident gain a clue to
the real state of the case he might be placed rather awkwardly, for the
simple reason that in the eyes of the law it amounted to a misdemeanour to
conceal as much as he had concealed. He asked himself, for the thousandth
time, why he had adopted a policy of concealment from the police, why he
had become in any way interested in the Posen matter, and why, at this
present moment, he should be so anxious to prosecute it further? To the first
two questions he replied, rather lamely, that he had been influenced by
Nella, and also by a natural spirit of adventure; to the third he replied that

he had always been in the habit of carrying things through, and was now
actuated by a mere childish, obstinate desire to carry this one through.
Moreover, he was splendidly conscious of his perfect ability to carry it
through. One additional impulse he had, though he did not admit it to
himself, being by nature adverse to big words, and that was an abstract love
of justice, the Anglo-Saxon’s deep-found instinct for helping the right side
to conquer, even when grave risks must thereby be run, with no
corresponding advantage.
He was turning these things over in his mind as he walked about the vast
hotel on that evening of the last day in July. The Society papers had been
stating for a week past that London was empty, but, in spite of the Society
papers, London persisted in seeming to be just as full as ever. The Grand
Babylon was certainly not as crowded as it had been a month earlier, but it
was doing a very passable business. At the close of the season the gay
butterflies of the social community have a habit of hovering for a day or
two in the big hotels before they flutter away to castle and country-house,
meadow and moor, lake and stream. The great basket-chairs in the portico
were well filled by old and middle-aged gentlemen engaged in enjoying the
varied delights of liqueurs, cigars, and the full moon which floated so
serenely above the Thames. Here and there a pretty woman on the arm of a
cavalier in immaculate attire swept her train as she turned to and fro in the
promenade of the terrace. Waiters and uniformed commissionaires and
gold-braided doorkeepers moved noiselessly about; at short intervals the
chief of the doorkeepers blew his shrill whistle and hansoms drove up with
tinkling bell to take away a pair of butterflies to some place of amusement
or boredom; occasionally a private carriage drawn by expensive and self-
conscious horses put the hansoms to shame by its mere outward glory. It
was a hot night, a night for the summer woods, and save for the vehicles
there was no rapid movement of any kind. It seemed as though the world—
the world, that is to say, of the Grand Babylon—was fully engaged in the
solemn processes of digestion and small-talk. Even the long row of the
Embankment gas-lamps, stretching right and left, scarcely trembled in the
still, warm, caressing air. The stars overhead looked down with many
blinkings upon the enormous pile of the Grand Babylon, and the moon
regarded it with bland and changeless face; what they thought of it and its
inhabitants cannot, unfortunately, be recorded. What Theodore Racksole
thought of the moon can be recorded: he thought it was a nuisance. It

somehow fascinated his gaze with its silly stare, and so interfered with his
complex meditations. He glanced round at the well-dressed and satisfied
people—his guests, his customers. They appeared to ignore him absolutely.
Probably only a very small percentage of them had the least idea that this
tall spare man, with the iron-grey hair and the thin, firm, resolute face, who
wore his American-cut evening clothes with such careless ease, was the sole
proprietor of the Grand Babylon, and possibly the richest man in Europe.
As has already been stated, Racksole was not a celebrity in England.
The guests of the Grand Babylon saw merely a restless male person,
whose restlessness was rather a disturber of their quietude, but with whom,
to judge by his countenance, it would be inadvisable to remonstrate.
Therefore Theodore Racksole continued his perambulations unchallenged,
and kept saying to himself, ‘I must do something.’ But what? He could
think of no course to pursue.
At last he walked straight through the hotel and out at the other entrance,
and so up the little unassuming side street into the roaring torrent of the
narrow and crowded Strand. He jumped on a Putney bus, and paid his fair
to Putney, fivepence, and then, finding that the humble occupants of the
vehicle stared at the spectacle of a man in evening dress but without a
dustcoat, he jumped off again, oblivious of the fact that the conductor
jerked a thumb towards him and winked at the passengers as who should
say, ‘There goes a lunatic.’ He went into a tobacconist’s shop and asked for
a cigar. The shopman mildly inquired what price.
‘What are the best you’ve got?’ asked Theodore Racksole.
‘Five shillings each, sir,’ said the man promptly.
‘Give me a penny one,’ was Theodore Racksole’s laconic request, and he
walked out of the shop smoking the penny cigar. It was a new sensation for
him.
He was inhaling the aromatic odours of Eugène Rimmel’s establishment
for the sale of scents when a gentleman, walking slowly in the opposite
direction, accosted him with a quiet, ‘Good evening, Mr Racksole.’ The
millionaire did not at first recognize his interlocutor, who wore a travelling
overcoat, and was carrying a handbag. Then a slight, pleased smile passed
over his features, and he held out his hand.

‘Well, Mr Babylon,’ he greeted the other, ‘of all persons in the wide
world you are the man I would most have wished to meet.’
‘You flatter me,’ said the little Anglicized Swiss.
‘No, I don’t,’ answered Racksole; ‘it isn’t my custom, any more than it’s
yours. I wanted to have a real good long yarn with you, and lo! here you
are! Where have you sprung from?’
‘From Lausanne,’ said Felix Babylon. ‘I had finished my duties there, I
had nothing else to do, and I felt homesick. I felt the nostalgia of London,
and so I came over, just as you see,’ and he raised the handbag for
Racksole’s notice. ‘One toothbrush, one razor, two slippers, eh?’ He
laughed. ‘I was wondering as I walked along where I should stay—me,
Felix Babylon, homeless in London.’
‘I should advise you to stay at the Grand Babylon,’ Racksole laughed
back.
‘It is a good hotel, and I know the proprietor personally.’
‘Rather expensive, is it not?’ said Babylon.
‘To you, sir,’ answered Racksole, ‘the inclusive terms will be exactly half
a crown a week. Do you accept?’
‘I accept,’ said Babylon, and added, ‘You are very good, Mr Racksole.’
They strolled together back to the hotel, saying nothing in particular, but
feeling very content with each other’s company.
‘Many customers?’ asked Felix Babylon.
‘Very tolerable,’ said Racksole, assuming as much of the air of the
professional hotel proprietor as he could. ‘I think I may say in the
storekeeper’s phrase, that if there is any business about I am doing it.
To-night the people are all on the terrace in the portico—it’s so
confoundedly hot—and the consumption of ice is simply enormous—nearly
as large as it would be in New York.’
‘In that case,’ said Babylon politely, ‘let me offer you another cigar.’
‘But I have not finished this one.’
‘That is just why I wish to offer you another one. A cigar such as yours,
my good friend, ought never to be smoked within the precincts of the Grand
Babylon, not even by the proprietor of the Grand Babylon, and especially

when all the guests are assembled in the portico. The fumes of it would ruin
any hotel.’
Theodore Racksole laughingly lighted the Rothschild Havana which
Babylon gave him, and they entered the hotel arm in arm. But no sooner
had they mounted the steps than little Felix became the object of
numberless greetings. It appeared that he had been highly popular among
his quondam guests. At last they reached the managerial room, where
Babylon was regaled on a chicken, and Racksole assisted him in the
consumption of a bottle of Heidsieck Monopole, Carte d’Or.
‘This chicken is almost perfectly grilled,’ said Babylon at length. ‘It is a
credit to the house. But why, my dear Racksole, why in the name of Heaven
did you quarrel with Rocco?’
‘Then you have heard?’
‘Heard! My dear friend, it was in every newspaper on the Continent.
Some journals prophesied that the Grand Babylon would have to close its
doors within half a year now that Rocco had deserted it. But of course I
knew better. I knew that you must have a good reason for allowing Rocco to
depart, and that you must have made arrangements in advance for a
substitute.’
‘As a matter of fact, I had not made arrangements in advance,’ said
Theodore Racksole, a little ruefully; ‘but happily we have found in our
second sous-chef an artist inferior only to Rocco himself. That, however,
was mere good fortune.’
‘Surely,’ said Babylon, ‘it was indiscreet to trust to mere good fortune in
such a serious matter?’
‘I didn’t trust to mere good fortune. I didn’t trust to anything except
Rocco, and he deceived me.’
‘But why did you quarrel with him?’
‘I didn’t quarrel with him. I found him embalming a corpse in the State
bedroom one night—’
‘You what?’ Babylon almost screamed.
‘I found him embalming a corpse in the State bedroom,’ repeated
Racksole in his quietest tones.

The two men gazed at each other, and then Racksole replenished
Babylon’s glass.
‘Tell me,’ said Babylon, settling himself deep in an easy chair and
lighting a cigar.
And Racksole thereupon recounted to him the whole of the Posen
episode, with every circumstantial detail so far as he knew it. It was a long
and complicated recital, and occupied about an hour. During that time little
Felix never spoke a word, scarcely moved a muscle; only his small eyes
gazed through the bluish haze of smoke. The clock on the mantelpiece
tinkled midnight.
‘Time for whisky and soda,’ said Racksole, and got up as if to ring the
bell; but Babylon waved him back.
‘You have told me that this Sampson Levi had an audience of Prince
Eugen to-day, but you have not told me the result of that audience,’ said
Babylon.
‘Because I do not yet know it. But I shall doubtless know to-morrow. In
the meantime, I feel fairly sure that Levi declined to produce Prince
Eugen’s required million. I have reason to believe that the money was lent
elsewhere.’
‘H’m!’ mused Babylon; and then, carelessly, ‘I am not at all surprised at
that arrangement for spying through the bathroom of the State apartments.’
‘Why are you not surprised?’
‘Oh!’ said Babylon, ‘it is such an obvious dodge—so easy to carry out.
As for me, I took special care never to involve myself in these affairs. I
knew they existed; I somehow felt that they existed. But I also felt that they
lay outside my sphere. My business was to provide board and lodging of the
most sumptuous kind to those who didn’t mind paying for it; and I did my
business. If anything else went on in the hotel, under the rose, I long
determined to ignore it unless it should happen to be brought before my
notice; and it never was brought before my notice. However, I admit that
there is a certain pleasurable excitement in this kind of affair and doubtless
you have experienced that.’
‘I have,’ said Racksole simply, ‘though I believe you are laughing at me.’
‘By no means,’ Babylon replied. ‘Now what, if I may ask the question, is
going to be your next step?’

‘That is just what I desire to know myself,’ said Theodore Racksole.
‘Well,’ said Babylon, after a pause, ‘let us begin. In the first place, it is
possible you may be interested to hear that I happened to see Jules to-day.’
‘You did!’ Racksole remarked with much calmness. ‘Where?’
‘Well, it was early this morning, in Paris, just before I left there. The
meeting was quite accidental, and Jules seemed rather surprised at meeting
me. He respectfully inquired where I was going, and I said that I was going
to Switzerland. At that moment I thought I was going to Switzerland. It had
occurred to me that after all I should be happier there, and that I had better
turn back and not see London any more. However, I changed my mind once
again, and decided to come on to London, and accept the risks of being
miserable there without my hotel. Then I asked Jules whither he was bound,
and he told me that he was off to Constantinople, being interested in a new
French hotel there. I wished him good luck, and we parted.’
‘Constantinople, eh!’ said Racksole. ‘A highly suitable place for him, I
should say.’
‘But,’ Babylon resumed, ‘I caught sight of him again.’
‘Where?’
‘At Charing Cross, a few minutes before I had the pleasure of meeting
you.
Mr Jules had not gone to Constantinople after all. He did not see me, or I
should have suggested to him that in going from Paris to Constantinople it
is not usual to travel via London.’
‘The cheek of the fellow!’ exclaimed Theodore Racksole. ‘The gorgeous
and colossal cheek of the fellow!’

Chapter Twenty-Two IN THE WINE CELLARS
OF THE GRAND BABYLON
‘DO you know anything of the antecedents of this Jules,’ asked Theodore
Racksole, helping himself to whisky.
‘Nothing whatever,’ said Babylon. ‘Until you told me, I don’t think I was
aware that his true name was Thomas Jackson, though of course I knew that
it was not Jules. I certainly was not aware that Miss Spencer was his wife,
but I had long suspected that their relations were somewhat more intimate
than the nature of their respective duties in the hotel absolutely demanded.
All that I do know of Jules—he will always be called Jules—is that he
gradually, by some mysterious personal force, acquired a prominent
position in the hotel. Decidedly he was the cleverest and most intellectual
waiter I have ever known, and he was specially skilled in the difficult task
of retaining his own dignity while not interfering with that of other people.
I’m afraid this information is a little too vague to be of any practical
assistance in the present difficulty.’
‘What is the present difficulty?’ Racksole queried, with a simple air.
‘I should imagine that the present difficulty is to account for the man’s
presence in London.’
‘That is easily accounted for,’ said Racksole.
‘How? Do you suppose he is anxious to give himself up to justice, or that
the chains of habit bind him to the hotel?’
‘Neither,’ said Racksole. ‘Jules is going to have another try—that’s all.’
‘Another try at what?’
‘At Prince Eugen. Either at his life or his liberty. Most probably the
former this time; almost certainly the former. He has guessed that we are
somewhat handicapped by our anxiety to keep Prince Eugen’s predicament
quite quiet, and he is taking advantage, of that fact. As he already is fairly
rich, on his own admission, the reward which has been offered to him must
be enormous, and he is absolutely determined to get it. He has several times

recently proved himself to be a daring fellow; unless I am mistaken he will
shortly prove himself to be still more daring.’
‘But what can he do? Surely you don’t suggest that he will attempt the
life of Prince Eugen in this hotel?’
‘Why not? If Reginald Dimmock fell on mere suspicion that he would
turn out unfaithful to the conspiracy, why not Prince Eugen?’
‘But it would be an unspeakable crime, and do infinite harm to the hotel!’
‘True!’ Racksole admitted, smiling. Little Felix Babylon seemed to brace
himself for the grasping of his monstrous idea.
‘How could it possibly be done?’ he asked at length.
‘Dimmock was poisoned.’
‘Yes, but you had Rocco here then, and Rocco was in the plot. It is
conceivable that Rocco could have managed it—barely conceivable. But
without Rocco I cannot think it possible. I cannot even think that Jules
would attempt it. You see, in a place like the Grand Babylon, as probably I
needn’t point out to you, food has to pass through so many hands that to
poison one person without killing perhaps fifty would be a most delicate
operation. Moreover, Prince Eugen, unless he has changed his habits, is
always served by his own attendant, old Hans, and therefore any attempt to
tamper with a cooked dish immediately before serving would be hazardous
in the extreme.’
‘Granted,’ said Racksole. ‘The wine, however, might be more easily got
at.
Had you thought of that?’
‘I had not,’ Babylon admitted. ‘You are an ingenious theorist, but I
happen to know that Prince Eugen always has his wine opened in his own
presence. No doubt it would be opened by Hans. Therefore the wine theory
is not tenable, my friend.’
‘I do not see why,’ said Racksole. ‘I know nothing of wine as an expert,
and I very seldom drink it, but it seems to me that a bottle of wine might be
tampered with while it was still in the cellar, especially if there was an
accomplice in the hotel.’
‘You think, then, that you are not yet rid of all your conspirators?’
‘I think that Jules might still have an accomplice within the building.’

‘And that a bottle of wine could be opened and recorked without leaving
any trace of the operation?’ Babylon was a trifle sarcastic.
‘I don’t see the necessity of opening the bottle in order to poison the
wine,’ said Racksole. ‘I have never tried to poison anybody by means of a
bottle of wine, and I don’t lay claim to any natural talent as a poisoner, but I
think I could devise several ways of managing the trick. Of course, I admit I
may be entirely mistaken as to Jules’ intentions.’
‘Ah!’ said Felix Babylon. ‘The wine cellars beneath us are one of the
wonders of London. I hope you are aware, Mr Racksole, that when you
bought the Grand Babylon you bought what is probably the finest stock of
wines in England, if not in Europe. In the valuation I reckoned them at sixty
thousand pounds. And I may say that I always took care that the cellars
were properly guarded. Even Jules would experience a serious difficulty in
breaking into the cellars without the connivance of the wine-clerk, and the
wine-clerk is, or was, incorruptible.’
‘I am ashamed to say that I have not yet inspected my wines,’ smiled
Racksole; ‘I have never given them a thought. Once or twice I have taken
the trouble to make a tour of the hotel, but I omitted the cellars in my
excursions.’
‘Impossible, my dear fellow!’ said Babylon, amused at such a confession,
to him—a great connoisseur and lover of fine wines—almost incredible.
‘But really you must see them to-morrow. If I may, I will accompany you.’
‘Why not to-night?’ Racksole suggested, calmly.
‘To-night! It is very late: Hubbard will have gone to bed.’
‘And may I ask who is Hubbard? I remember the name but dimly.’
‘Hubbard is the wine-clerk of the Grand Babylon,’ said Felix, with a
certain emphasis. ‘A sedate man of forty. He has the keys of the cellars. He
knows every bottle of every bin, its date, its qualities, its value. And he’s a
teetotaler. Hubbard is a curiosity. No wine can leave the cellars without his
knowledge, and no person can enter the cellars without his knowledge. At
least, that is how it was in my time,’ Babylon added.
‘We will wake him,’ said Racksole.
‘But it is one o’clock in the morning,’ Babylon protested.
‘Never mind—that is, if you consent to accompany me. A cellar is the
same by night as by day. Therefore, why not now?’

Babylon shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you wish,’ he agreed, with his
indestructible politeness.
‘And now to find this Mr Hubbard, with his key of the cupboard,’ said
Racksole, as they walked out of the room together. Although the hour was
so late, the hotel was not, of course, closed for the night. A few guests still
remained about in the public rooms, and a few fatigued waiters were still in
attendance. One of these latter was despatched in search of the singular Mr
Hubbard, and it fortunately turned out that this gentleman had not actually
retired, though he was on the point of doing so. He brought the keys to Mr
Racksole in person, and after he had had a little chat with his former master,
the proprietor and the ex-proprietor of the Grand Babylon Hôtel proceeded
on their way to the cellars.
These cellars extend over, or rather under, quite half the superficial areas
of the whole hotel—the longitudinal half which lies next to the Strand.
Owing to the fact that the ground slopes sharply from the Strand to the
river, the Grand Babylon is, so to speak, deeper near the Strand than it is
near the Thames. Towards the Thames there is, below the entrance level, a
basement and a sub-basement. Towards the Strand there is basement, sub-
basement, and the huge wine cellars beneath all. After descending the four
flights of the service stairs, and traversing a long passage running parallel
with the kitchen, the two found themselves opposite a door, which, on being
unlocked, gave access to another flight of stairs. At the foot of this was the
main entrance to the cellars. Outside the entrance was the wine-lift, for the
ascension of delicious fluids to the upper floors, and, opposite, Mr
Hubbard’s little office. There was electric light everywhere.
Babylon, who, as being most accustomed to them, held the bunch of
keys, opened the great door, and then they were in the first cellar—the first
of a suite of five. Racksole was struck not only by the icy coolness of the
place, but also by its vastness. Babylon had seized a portable electric
handlight, attached to a long wire, which lay handy, and, waving it about,
disclosed the dimensions of the place. By that flashing illumination the
subterranean chamber looked unutterably weird and mysterious, with its
rows of numbered bins, stretching away into the distance till the radiance
was reduced to the occasional far gleam of the light on the shoulder of a
bottle. Then Babylon switched on the fixed electric lights, and Theodore

Racksole entered upon a personally-conducted tour of what was quite the
most interesting part of his own property.
To see the innocent enthusiasm of Felix Babylon for these stores of
exhilarating liquid was what is called in the North ‘a sight for sair een’.
He displayed to Racksole’s bewildered gaze, in their due order, all the
wines of three continents—nay, of four, for the superb and luscious
Constantia wine of Cape Colony was not wanting in that most catholic
collection of vintages. Beginning with the unsurpassed products of
Burgundy, he continued with the clarets of Médoc, Bordeaux, and Sauterne;
then to the champagnes of Ay, Hautvilliers, and Pierry; then to the hocks
and moselles of Germany, and the brilliant imitation champagnes of Main,
Neckar, and Naumburg; then to the famous and adorable Tokay of Hungary,
and all the Austrian varieties of French wines, including Carlowitz and
Somlauer; then to the dry sherries of Spain, including purest Manzanilla,
and Amontillado, and Vino de Pasto; then to the wines of Malaga, both
sweet and dry, and all the ‘Spanish reds’ from Catalonia, including the dark
‘Tent’ so often used sacramentally; then to the renowned port of Oporto.
Then he proceeded to the Italian cellar, and descanted upon the excellence
of Barolo from Piedmont, of Chianti from Tuscany, of Orvieto from the
Roman States, of the ‘Tears of Christ’ from Naples, and the commoner
Marsala from Sicily. And so on, to an extent and with a fullness of detail
which cannot be rendered here.
At the end of the suite of cellars there was a glazed door, which, as could
be seen, gave access to a supplemental and smaller cellar, an apartment
about fifteen or sixteen feet square.
‘Anything special in there?’ asked Racksole curiously, as they stood
before the door, and looked within at the seined ends of bottles.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Babylon, almost smacking his lips, ‘therein lies the
cream of all.’
‘The best champagne, I suppose?’ said Racksole.
‘Yes,’ said Babylon, ‘the best champagne is there—a very special Sillery,
as exquisite as you will find anywhere. But I see, my friend, that you fall
into the common error of putting champagne first among wines. That
distinction belongs to Burgundy. You have old Burgundy in that cellar, Mr
Racksole, which cost me—how much do you think?—eighty pounds a
bottle.

Probably it will never be drunk,’ he added with a sigh. ‘It is too
expensive even for princes and plutocrats.’
‘Yes, it will,’ said Racksole quickly. ‘You and I will have a bottle up to-
morrow.’
‘Then,’ continued Babylon, still riding his hobby-horse, ‘there is a
sample of the Rhine wine dated 1706 which caused such a sensation at the
Vienna Exhibition of 1873. There is also a singularly glorious Persian wine
from Shiraz, the like of which I have never seen elsewhere. Also there is an
unrivalled vintage of Romanée-Conti, greatest of all modern Burgundies. If
I remember right Prince Eugen invariably has a bottle when he comes to
stay here. It is not on the hotel wine list, of course, and only a few
customers know of it. We do not precisely hawk it about the dining-room.’
‘Indeed!’ said Racksole. ‘Let us go inside.’
They entered the stone apartment, rendered almost sacred by the
preciousness of its contents, and Racksole looked round with a strangely
intent and curious air. At the far side was a grating, through which came a
feeble light.
‘What is that?’ asked the millionaire sharply.
‘That is merely a ventilation grating. Good ventilation is absolutely
essential.’
‘Looks broken, doesn’t it?’ Racksole suggested and then, putting a finger
quickly on Babylon’s shoulder, ‘there’s someone in the cellar. Can’t you
hear breathing, down there, behind that bin?’
The two men stood tense and silent for a while, listening, under the ray of
the single electric light in the ceiling. Half the cellar was involved in gloom.
At length Racksole walked firmly down the central passage-way between
the bins and turned to the corner at the right.
‘Come out, you villain!’ he said in a low, well-nigh vicious tone, and
dragged up a cowering figure.
He had expected to find a man, but it was his own daughter, Nella
Racksole, upon whom he had laid angry hands.

Chapter Twenty-Three FURTHER EVENTS IN
THE CELLAR
‘WELL, Father,’ Nella greeted her astounded parent. ‘You should make
sure that you have got hold of the right person before you use all that
terrible muscular force of yours. I do believe you have broken my shoulder
bone.’ She rubbed her shoulder with a comical expression of pain, and then
stood up before the two men. The skirt of her dark grey dress was torn and
dirty, and the usually trim Nella looked as though she had been shot down a
canvas fire-escape. Mechanically she smoothed her frock, and gave a
straightening touch to her hair.
‘Good evening, Miss Racksole,’ said Felix Babylon, bowing formally.
‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’ Felix’s drawing-room manners never
deserted him upon any occasion whatever.
‘May I inquire what you are doing in my wine cellar, Nella Racksole?’
said the millionaire a little stiffly He was certainly somewhat annoyed at
having mistaken his daughter for a criminal; moreover, he hated to be
surprised, and upon this occasion he had been surprised beyond any
ordinary surprise; lastly, he was not at all pleased that Nella should be
observed in that strange predicament by a stranger.
‘I will tell you,’ said Nella. ‘I had been reading rather late in my room—
the night was so close. I heard Big Ben strike half-past twelve, and then I
put the book down, and went out on to the balcony of my window for a
little fresh air before going to bed. I leaned over the balcony very quietly—
you will remember that I am on the third floor now—and looked down
below into the little sunk yard which separates the wall of the hotel from
Salisbury Lane. I was rather astonished to see a figure creeping across the
yard. I knew there was no entrance into the hotel from that yard, and
besides, it is fifteen or twenty feet below the level of the street. So I
watched. The figure went close up against the wall, and disappeared from
my view. I leaned over the balcony as far as I dared, but I couldn’t see him.
I could hear him, however.’
‘What could you hear?’ questioned Racksole sharply.

‘It sounded like a sawing noise,’ said Nella; ‘and it went on for quite a
long time—nearly a quarter of an hour, I should think—a rasping sort of
noise.’
‘Why on earth didn’t you come and warn me or someone else in the
hotel?’ asked Racksole.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Dad,’ she replied sweetly. ‘I had got interested in it,
and I thought I would see it out myself. Well, as I was saying, Mr.
Babylon,’ she continued, addressing her remarks to Felix, with a dazzling
smile, ‘that noise went on for quite a long time. At last it stopped, and the
figure reappeared from under the wall, crossed the yard, climbed up the
opposite wall by some means or other, and so over the railings into
Salisbury Lane. I felt rather relieved then, because I knew he hadn’t actually
broken into the hotel. He walked down Salisbury Lane very slowly. A
policeman was just coming up. “Goodnight, officer,” I heard him say to the
policeman, and he asked him for a match. The policeman supplied the
match, and the other man lighted a cigarette, and proceeded further down
the lane. By cricking your neck from my window, Mr Babylon, you can get
a glimpse of the Embankment and the river. I saw the man cross the
Embankment, and lean over the river wall, where he seemed to be talking to
some one. He then walked along the Embankment to Westminster and that
was the last I saw of him. I waited a minute or two for him to come back,
but he didn’t come back, and so I thought it was about time I began to make
inquiries into the affair. I went downstairs instantly, and out of the hotel,
through the quadrangle, into Salisbury Lane, and I looked over those
railings. There was a ladder on the other side, by which it was perfectly
easy—once you had got over the railings—to climb down into the yard. I
was horribly afraid lest someone might walk up Salisbury Lane and catch
me in the act of negotiating those railings, but no one did, and I surmounted
them, with no worse damage than a torn skirt. I crossed the yard on tiptoe,
and I found that in the wall, close to the ground and almost exactly under
my window, there was an iron grating, about one foot by fourteen inches. I
suspected, as there was no other ironwork near, that the mysterious visitor
must have been sawing at this grating for private purposes of his own. I
gave it a good shake, and I was not at all surprised that a good part of it
came off in my hand, leaving just enough room for a person to creep
through. I decided that I would creep through, and now wish I hadn’t. I

don’t know, Mr Babylon, whether you have ever tried to creep through a
small hole with a skirt on. Have you?’
‘I have not had that pleasure,’ said little Felix, bowing again, and
absently taking up a bottle which lay to his hand.
‘Well, you are fortunate,’ the imperturbable Nella resumed. ‘For quite
three minutes I thought I should perish in that grating, Dad, with my
shoulder inside and the rest of me outside. However, at last, by the most
amazing and agonizing efforts, I pulled myself through and fell into this
extraordinary cellar more dead than alive. Then I wondered what I should
do next. Should I wait for the mysterious visitor to return, and stab him with
my pocket scissors if he tried to enter, or should I raise an alarm? First of all
I replaced the broken grating, then I struck a match, and I saw that I had got
landed in a wilderness of bottles. The match went out, and I hadn’t another
one. So I sat down in the corner to think. I had just decided to wait and see
if the visitor returned, when I heard footsteps, and then voices; and then you
came in. I must say I was rather taken aback, especially as I recognized the
voice of Mr Babylon. You see, I didn’t want to frighten you.
If I had bobbed up from behind the bottles and said “Booh!” you would
have had a serious shock. I wanted to think of a way of breaking my
presence gently to you. But you saved me the trouble, Dad. Was I really
breathing so loudly that you could hear me?’
The girl ended her strange recital, and there was a moment’s silence in
the cellar. Racksole merely nodded an affirmative to her concluding
question.
‘Well, Nell, my girl,’ said the millionaire at length, ‘we are much obliged
for your gymnastic efforts—very much obliged. But now, I think you had
better go off to bed. There is going to be some serious trouble here, I’ll lay
my last dollar on that?’
‘But if there is to be a burglary I should so like to see it, Dad,’ Nella
pleaded. ‘I’ve never seen a burglar caught red-handed.’
‘This isn’t a burglary, my dear. I calculate it’s something far worse than a
burglary.’
‘What?’ she cried. ‘Murder? Arson? Dynamite plot? How perfectly
splendid!’
‘Mr Babylon informs me that Jules is in London,’ said Racksole quietly.

‘Jules!’ she exclaimed under her breath, and her tone changed instantly to
the utmost seriousness. ‘Switch off the light, quick!’ Springing to the
switch, she put the cellar in darkness.
‘What’s that for?’ said her father.
‘If he comes back he would see the light, and be frightened away,’ said
Nella. ‘That wouldn’t do at all.’
‘It wouldn’t, Miss Racksole,’ said Babylon, and there was in his voice a
note of admiration for the girl’s sagacity which Racksole heard with high
paternal pride.
‘Listen, Nella,’ said the latter, drawing his daughter to him in the
profound gloom of the cellar. ‘We fancy that Jules may be trying to tamper
with a certain bottle of wine—a bottle which might possibly be drunk by
Prince Eugen. Now do you think that the man you saw might have been
Jules?’
‘I hadn’t previously thought of him as being Jules, but immediately you
mentioned the name I somehow knew that he was. Yes, I am sure it was
Jules.’
‘Well, just hear what I have to say. There is no time to lose. If he is
coming at all he will be here very soon—and you can help.’ Racksole
explained what he thought Jules’ tactics might be. He proposed that if the
man returned he should not be interfered with, but merely watched from the
other side of the glass door.
‘You want, as it were, to catch Mr Jules alive?’ said Babylon, who
seemed rather taken aback at this novel method of dealing with criminals.
‘Surely,’ he added, ‘it would be simpler and easier to inform the police of
your suspicion, and to leave everything to them.’
‘My dear fellow,’ said Racksole, ‘we have already gone much too far
without the police to make it advisable for us to call them in at this
somewhat advanced stage of the proceedings. Besides, if you must know it,
I have a particular desire to capture the scoundrel myself. I will leave you
and Nella here, since Nella insists on seeing everything, and I will arrange
things so that once he has entered the cellar Jules will not get out of it again
—at any rate through the grating. You had better place yourselves on the
other side of the glass door, in the big cellar; you will be in a position to
observe from there, I will skip off at once. All you have to do is to take note

of what the fellow does. If he has any accomplices within the hotel we shall
probably be able by that means to discover who the accomplice is.’
Lighting a match and shading it with his hands, Racksole showed them
both out of the little cellar. ‘Now if you lock this glass door on the outside
he can’t escape this way: the panes of glass are too small, and the
woodwork too stout. So, if he comes into the trap, you two will have the
pleasure of actually seeing him frantically writhe therein, without any
personal danger; but perhaps you’d better not show yourselves.’
In another moment Felix Babylon and Nella were left to themselves in
the darkness of the cellar, listening to the receding footfalls of Theodore
Racksole. But the sound of these footfalls had not died away before another
sound greeted their ears—the grating of the small cellar was being
removed.
‘I hope your father will be in time,’ whispered Felix
‘Hush!’ the girl warned him, and they stooped side by side in tense
silence.
A man cautiously but very neatly wormed his body through the aperture
of the grating. The watchers could only see his form indistinctly in the
darkness.
Then, being fairly within the cellar, he walked without the least hesitation
to the electric switch and turned on the light. It was unmistakably Jules, and
he knew the geography of the cellar very well. Babylon could with
difficulty repress a start as he saw this bold and unscrupulous ex-waiter
moving with such an air of assurance and determination about the precious
cellar. Jules went directly to a small bin which was numbered 17, and took
there from the topmost bottle.
‘The Romanee-Conti—Prince Eugen’s wine!’ Babylon exclaimed under
his breath.
Jules neatly and quickly removed the seal with an instrument which he
had clearly brought for the purpose. He then took a little flat box from his
pocket, which seemed to contain a sort of black salve. Rubbing his finger in
this, he smeared the top of the neck of the bottle with it, just where the cork
came against the glass. In another instant he had deftly replaced the seal and
restored the bottle to its position. He then turned off the light, and made for

the aperture. When he was half-way through Nella exclaimed, ‘He will
escape, after all. Dad has not had time—we must stop him.’
But Babylon, that embodiment of caution, forcibly, but nevertheless
politely, restrained this Yankee girl, whom he deemed so rash and
imprudent, and before she could free herself the lithe form of Jules had
disappeared.

Chapter Twenty-Four THE BOTTLE OF WINE
AS regards Theodore Racksole, who was to have caught his man from
the outside of the cellar, he made his way as rapidly as possible from the
wine-cellars, up to the ground floor, out of the hotel by the quadrangle,
through the quadrangle, and out into the top of Salisbury Lane. Now, owing
to the vastness of the structure of the Grand Babylon, the mere distance thus
to be traversed amounted to a little short of a quarter of a mile, and, as it
included a number of stairs, about two dozen turnings, and several passages
which at that time of night were in darkness more or less complete,
Racksole could not have been expected to accomplish the journey in less
than five minutes. As a matter of fact, six minutes had elapsed before he
reached the top of Salisbury Lane, because he had been delayed nearly a
minute by some questions addressed to him by a muddled and whisky-laden
guest who had got lost in the corridors. As everybody knows, there is a
sharp short bend in Salisbury Lane near the top. Racksole ran round this at
good racing speed, but he was unfortunate enough to run straight up against
the very policeman who had not long before so courteously supplied Jules
with a match. The policeman seemed to be scarcely in so pliant a mood just
then.
‘Hullo!’ he said, his naturally suspicious nature being doubtless aroused
by the spectacle of a bareheaded man in evening dress running violently
down the lane. ‘What’s this? Where are you for in such a hurry?’ and he
forcibly detained Theodore Racksole for a moment and scrutinized his face.
‘Now, officer,’ said Racksole quietly, ‘none of your larks, if you please.
I’ve no time to lose.’
‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ the policeman remarked, though hesitatingly and
not quite with good temper, and Racksole was allowed to proceed on his
way. The millionaire’s scheme for trapping Jules was to get down into the
little sunk yard by means of the ladder, and then to secrete himself behind
some convenient abutment of brickwork until Mr Tom Jackson should have
got into the cellar. He therefore nimbly surmounted the railings—the
railings of his own hotel—and was gingerly descending the ladder, when lo!

a rough hand seized him by the coat-collar and with a ferocious jerk urged
him backwards. The fact was, Theodore Racksole had counted without the
policeman. That guardian of the peace, mistrusting Racksole’s manner,
quietly followed him down the lane. The sight of the millionaire climbing
the railings had put him on his mettle, and the result was the ignominious
capture of Racksole. In vain Theodore expostulated, explained,
anathematized. Only one thing would satisfy the stolid policeman—namely,
that Racksole should return with him to the hotel and there establish his
identity. If Racksole then proved to be Racksole, owner of the Grand
Babylon, well and good—the policeman promised to apologize. So
Theodore had no alternative but to accept the suggestion. To prove his
identity was, of course, the work of only a few minutes, after which
Racksole, annoyed, but cool as ever, returned to his railings, while the
policeman went off to another part of his beat, where he would be likely to
meet a comrade and have a chat.
In the meantime, our friend Jules, sublimely unconscious of the
altercation going on outside, and of the special risk which he ran, was of
course actually in the cellar, which he had reached before Racksole got to
the railings for the first time. It was, indeed, a happy chance for Jules that
his exit from the cellar coincided with the period during which Racksole
was absent from the railings. As Racksole came down the lane for the
second time, he saw a figure walking about fifty yards in front of him
towards the Embankment. Instantly he divined that it was Jules, and that the
policeman had thrown him just too late. He ran, and Jules, hearing the noise
of pursuit, ran also. The ex-waiter was fleet; he made direct for a certain
spot in the Embankment wall, and, to the intense astonishment of Racksole,
jumped clean over the wall, as it seemed, into the river. ‘Is he so desperate
as to commit suicide?’ Racksole exclaimed as he ran, but a second later the
puff and snort of a steam launch told him that Jules was not quite driven to
suicide. As the millionaire crossed the Embankment roadway he saw the
funnel of the launch move out from under the river-wall. It swerved into
midstream and headed towards London Bridge. There was a silent mist over
the river. Racksole was helpless....
Although Racksole had now been twice worsted in a contest of wits
within the precincts of the Grand Babylon, once by Rocco and once by
Jules, he could not fairly blame himself for the present miscarriage of his
plans—a miscarriage due to the meddlesomeness of an extraneous person,

combined with pure ill-fortune. He did not, therefore, permit the accident to
interfere with his sleep that night.
On the following day he sought out Prince Aribert, between whom and
himself there now existed a feeling of unmistakable, frank friendship, and
disclosed to him the happenings of the previous night, and particularly the
tampering with the bottle of Romanée-Conti.
‘I believe you dined with Prince Eugen last night?’
‘I did. And curiously enough we had a bottle of Romanée-Conti, an
admirable wine, of which Eugen is passionately fond.’
‘And you will dine with him to-night?’
‘Most probably. To-day will, I fear, be our last day here. Eugen wishes to
return to Posen early to-morrow.’
‘Has it struck you, Prince,’ said Racksole, ‘that if Jules had succeeded in
poisoning your nephew, he would probably have succeeded also in
poisoning you?’
‘I had not thought of it,’ laughed Aribert, ‘but it would seem so. It
appears that so long as he brings down his particular quarry, Jules is
careless of anything else that may be accidentally involved in the
destruction. However, we need have no fear on that score now. You know
the bottle, and you can destroy it at once.’
‘But I do not propose to destroy it,’ said Racksole calmly. ‘If Prince
Eugen asks for Romanée-Conti to be served to-night, as he probably will, I
propose that that precise bottle shall be served to him—and to you.’
‘Then you would poison us in spite of ourselves?’
‘Scarcely,’ Racksole smiled. ‘My notion is to discover the accomplices
within the hotel. I have already inquired as to the wine-clerk, Hubbard.
Now does it not occur to you as extraordinary that on this particular day Mr
Hubbard should be ill in bed? Hubbard, I am informed, is suffering from an
attack of stomach poisoning, which has supervened during the night. He
says that he does not know what can have caused it. His place in the wine
cellars will be taken to-day by his assistant, a mere youth, but to all
appearances a fairly smart youth. I need not say that we shall keep an eye
on that youth.’
‘One moment,’ Prince Aribert interrupted. ‘I do not quite understand how
you think the poisoning was to have been effected.’

‘The bottle is now under examination by an expert, who has instructions
to remove as little as possible of the stuff which Jules put on the rim of the
mouth of it. It will be secretly replaced in its bin during the day. My idea is
that by the mere action of pouring out the wine takes up some of the poison,
which I deem to be very strong, and thus becomes fatal as it enters the
glass.’
‘But surely the servant in attendance would wipe the mouth of the
bottle?’
‘Very carelessly, perhaps. And moreover he would be extremely unlikely
to wipe off all the stuff; some of it has been ingeniously placed just on the
inside edge of the rim. Besides, suppose he forgot to wipe the bottle?’
‘Prince Eugen is always served at dinner by Hans. It is an honour which
the faithful old fellow reserves for himself.’
‘But suppose Hans—’ Racksole stopped.
‘Hans an accomplice! My dear Racksole, the suggestion is wildly
impossible.’
That night Prince Aribert dined with his august nephew in the superb
dining-room of the Royal apartments. Hans served, the dishes being
brought to the door by other servants. Aribert found his nephew despondent
and taciturn. On the previous day, when, after the futile interview with
Sampson Levi, Prince Eugen had despairingly threatened to commit
suicide, in such a manner as to make it ‘look like an accident’, Aribert had
compelled him to give his word of honour not to do so.
‘What wine will your Royal Highness take?’ asked old Hans in his
soothing tones, when the soup was served.
‘Sherry,’ was Prince Eugen’s curt order.
‘And Romanée-Conti afterwards?’ said Hans. Aribert looked up quickly.
‘No, not to-night. I’ll try Sillery to-night,’ said Prince Eugen.
‘I think I’ll have Romanée-Conti, Hans, after all,’ he said. ‘It suits me
better than champagne.’
The famous and unsurpassable Burgundy was served with the roast. Old
Hans brought it tenderly in its wicker cradle, inserted the corkscrew with
mathematical precision, and drew the cork, which he offered for his
master’s inspection. Eugen nodded, and told him to put it down. Aribert

watched with intense interest. He could not for an instant believe that Hans
was not the very soul of fidelity, and yet, despite himself, Racksole’s words
had caused him a certain uneasiness. At that moment Prince Eugen
murmured across the table:
‘Aribert, I withdraw my promise. Observe that, I withdraw it.’ Aribert
shook his head emphatically, without removing his gaze from Hans. The
white-haired servant perfunctorily dusted his napkin round the neck of the
bottle of Romanée-Conti, and poured out a glass. Aribert trembled from
head to foot.
Eugen took up the glass and held it to the light.
‘Don’t drink it,’ said Aribert very quietly. ‘It is poisoned.’
‘Poisoned!’ exclaimed Prince Eugen.
‘Poisoned, sire!’ exclaimed old Hans, with an air of profound amazement
and concern, and he seized the glass. ‘Impossible, sire. I myself opened the
bottle. No one else has touched it, and the cork was perfect.’
‘I tell you it is poisoned,’ Aribert repeated.
‘Your Highness will pardon an old man,’ said Hans, ‘but to say that this
wine is poison is to say that I am a murderer. I will prove to you that it is
not poisoned. I will drink it.’ And he raised the glass to his trembling lips. In
that moment Aribert saw that old Hans, at any rate, was not an accomplice
of Jules. Springing up from his seat, he knocked the glass from the aged
servitor’s hands, and the fragments of it fell with a light tinkling crash
partly on the table and partly on the floor. The Prince and the servant gazed
at one another in a distressing and terrible silence.
There was a slight noise, and Aribert looked aside. He saw that Eugen’s
body had slipped forward limply over the left arm of his chair; the Prince’s
arms hung straight and lifeless; his eyes were closed; he was unconscious.
‘Hans!’ murmured Aribert. ‘Hans! What is this?’

Chapter Twenty-Five THE STEAM LAUNCH
MR TOM JACKSON’s notion of making good his escape from the hotel
by means of a steam launch was an excellent one, so far as it went, but
Theodore Racksole, for his part, did not consider that it went quite far
enough.
Theodore Racksole opined, with peculiar glee, that he now had a tangible
and definite clue for the catching of the Grand Babylon’s ex-waiter. He
knew nothing of the Port of London, but he happened to know a good deal
of the far more complicated, though somewhat smaller, Port of New York,
and he was sure there ought to be no extraordinary difficulty in getting hold
of Jules’ steam launch. To those who are not thoroughly familiar with it the
River Thames and its docks, from London Bridge to Gravesend, seems a
vast and uncharted wilderness of craft—a wilderness in which it would be
perfectly easy to hide even a three-master successfully. To such people the
idea of looking for a steam launch on the river would be about equivalent to
the idea of looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. But the fact is, there are
hundreds of men between St Katherine’s Wharf and Blackwall who literally
know the Thames as the suburban householder knows his back-garden—
who can recognize thousands of ships and put a name to them at a distance
of half a mile, who are informed as to every movement of vessels on the
great stream, who know all the captains, all the engineers, all the
lightermen, all the pilots, all the licensed watermen, and all the unlicensed
scoundrels from the Tower to Gravesend, and a lot further. By these experts
of the Thames the slightest unusual event on the water is noticed and
discussed—a wherry cannot change hands but they will guess shrewdly
upon the price paid and the intentions of the new owner with regard to it.
They have a habit of watching the river for the mere interest of the sight,
and they talk about everything like housewives gathered of an evening
round the cottage door. If the first mate of a Castle Liner gets the sack they
will be able to tell you what he said to the captain, what the old man said to
him, and what both said to the Board, and having finished off that affair
they will cheerfully turn to discussing whether Bill Stevens sank his barge
outside the West Indian No.2 by accident or on purpose.

Theodore Racksole had no satisfactory means of identifying the steam
launch which carried away Mr Tom Jackson. The sky had clouded over
soon after midnight, and there was also a slight mist, and he had only been
able to make out that it was a low craft, about sixty feet long, probably
painted black. He had personally kept a watch all through the night on
vessels going upstream, and during the next morning he had a man to take
his place who warned him whenever a steam launch went towards
Westminster. At noon, after his conversation with Prince Aribert, he went
down the river in a hired row-boat as far as the Custom House, and poked
about everywhere, in search of any vessel which could by any possibility be
the one he was in search of.
But he found nothing. He was, therefore, tolerably sure that the
mysterious launch lay somewhere below the Custom House. At the Custom
House stairs, he landed, and asked for a very high official—an official
inferior only to a Commissioner—whom he had entertained once in New
York, and who had met him in London on business at Lloyd’s. In the large
but dingy office of this great man a long conversation took place—a
conversation in which Racksole had to exercise a certain amount of
persuasive power, and which ultimately ended in the high official ringing
his bell.
‘Desire Mr Hazell—room No. 332—to speak to me,’ said the official to
the boy who answered the summons, and then, turning to Racksole: ‘I need
hardly repeat, my dear Mr Racksole, that this is strictly unofficial.’
‘Agreed, of course,’ said Racksole.
Mr Hazell entered. He was a young man of about thirty, dressed in blue
serge, with a pale, keen face, a brown moustache and a rather handsome
brown beard.
‘Mr Hazell,’ said the high official, ‘let me introduce you to Mr Theodore
Racksole—you will doubtless be familiar with his name. Mr Hazell,’ he
went on to Racksole, ‘is one of our outdoor staff—what we call an
examining officer. Just now he is doing night duty. He has a boat on the
river and a couple of men, and the right to board and examine any craft
whatever. What Mr Hazell and his crew don’t know about the Thames
between here and Gravesend isn’t knowledge.’
‘Glad to meet you, sir,’ said Racksole simply, and they shook hands.

Racksole observed with satisfaction that Mr Hazell was entirely at his
ease.
‘Now, Hazell,’ the high official continued, ‘Mr Racksole wants you to
help in a little private expedition on the river to-night. I will give you a
night’s leave. I sent for you partly because I thought you would enjoy the
affair and partly because I think I can rely on you to regard it as entirely
unofficial and not to talk about it. You understand? I dare say you will have
no cause to regret having obliged Mr Racksole.’
‘I think I grasp the situation,’ said Hazell, with a slight smile.
‘And, by the way,’ added the high official, ‘although the business is
unofficial, it might be well if you wore your official overcoat. See?’
‘Decidedly,’ said Hazell; ‘I should have done so in any case.’
‘And now, Mr Hazell,’ said Racksole, ‘will you do me the pleasure of
lunching with me? If you agree, I should like to lunch at the place you
usually frequent.’
So it came to pass that Theodore Racksole and George Hazell, outdoor
clerk in the Customs, lunched together at ‘Thomas’s Chop-House’, in the
city of London, upon mutton-chops and coffee. The millionaire soon
discovered that he had got hold of a keen-witted man and a person of much
insight.
‘Tell me,’ said Hazell, when they had reached the cigarette stage, ‘are the
magazine writers anything like correct?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Racksole, mystified.
‘Well, you’re a millionaire—“one of the best”, I believe. One often sees
articles on and interviews with millionaires, which describe their private
railroad cars, their steam yachts on the Hudson, their marble stables, and so
on, and so on. Do you happen to have those things?’
‘I have a private car on the New York Central, and I have a two thousand
ton schooner-yacht—though it isn’t on the Hudson. It happens just now to
be on East River. And I am bound to admit that the stables of my uptown
place are fitted with marble.’ Racksole laughed.
‘Ah!’ said Hazell. ‘Now I can believe that I am lunching with a
millionaire.

It’s strange how facts like those—unimportant in themselves—appeal to
the imagination. You seem to me a real millionaire now. You’ve given me
some personal information; I’ll give you some in return. I earn three
hundred a year, and perhaps sixty pounds a year extra for overtime. I live by
myself in two rooms in Muscovy Court. I’ve as much money as I need, and
I always do exactly what I like outside office. As regards the office, I do as
little work as I can, on principle—it’s a fight between us and the
Commissioners who shall get the best. They try to do us down, and we try
to do them down—it’s pretty even on the whole. All’s fair in war, you know,
and there ain’t no ten commandments in a Government office.’
Racksole laughed. ‘Can you get off this afternoon?’ he asked.
‘Certainly,’ said Hazell; ‘I’ll get one of my pals to sign on for me, and
then I shall be free.’
‘Well,’ said Racksole, ‘I should like you to come down with me to the
Grand Babylon. Then we can talk over my little affair at length. And may
we go on your boat? I want to meet your crew.’
‘That will be all right,’ Hazell remarked. ‘My two men are the idlest,
most soul-less chaps you ever saw. They eat too much, and they have an
enormous appetite for beer; but they know the river, and they know their
business, and they will do anything within the fair game if they are paid for
it, and aren’t asked to hurry.’
That night, just after dark, Theodore Racksole embarked with his new
friend George Hazell in one of the black-painted Customs wherries, manned
by a crew of two men—both the later freemen of the river, a distinction
which carries with it certain privileges unfamiliar to the mere landsman. It
was a cloudy and oppressive evening, not a star showing to illumine the
slow tide, now just past its flood. The vast forms of steamers at anchor—
chiefly those of the General Steam Navigation and the Aberdeen Line—
heaved themselves high out of the water, straining sluggishly at their
mooring buoys. On either side the naked walls of warehouses rose like grey
precipices from the stream, holding forth quaint arms of steam-cranes. To
the west the Tower Bridge spanned the river with its formidable arch, and
above that its suspended footpath—a hundred and fifty feet from earth.
Down towards the east and the Pool of London a forest of funnels and
masts was dimly outlined against the sinister sky. Huge barges, each steered
by a single man at the end of a pair of giant oars, lumbered and swirled

down-stream at all angles. Occasionally a tug snorted busily past, flashing
its red and green signals and dragging an unwieldy tail of barges in its
wake. Then a Margate passenger steamer, its electric lights gleaming from
every porthole, swerved round to anchor, with its load of two thousand
fatigued excursionists. Over everything brooded an air of mystery—a spirit
and feeling of strangeness, remoteness, and the inexplicable. As the broad
flat little boat bobbed its way under the shadow of enormous hulks, beneath
stretched hawsers, and past buoys covered with green slime, Racksole could
scarcely believe that he was in the very heart of London—the most prosaic
city in the world. He had a queer idea that almost anything might happen in
this seeming waste of waters at this weird hour of ten o’clock. It appeared
incredible to him that only a mile or two away people were sitting in
theatres applauding farces, and that at Cannon Street Station, a few yards
off, other people were calmly taking the train to various highly respectable
suburbs whose names he was gradually learning. He had the uplifting
sensation of being in another world which comes to us sometimes amid
surroundings violently different from our usual surroundings. The most
ordinary noises—of men calling, of a chain running through a slot, of a
distant siren—translated themselves to his ears into terrible and haunting
sounds, full of portentous significance. He looked over the side of the boat
into the brown water, and asked himself what frightful secrets lay hidden in
its depth. Then he put his hand into his hip-pocket and touched the stock of
his Colt revolver—that familiar substance comforted him.
The oarsmen had instructions to drop slowly down to the Pool, as the
wide reach below the Tower is called. These two men had not been
previously informed of the precise object of the expedition, but now that
they were safely afloat Hazell judged it expedient to give them some notion
of it. ‘We expect to come across a rather suspicious steam launch,’ he said.
‘My friend here is very anxious to get a sight of her, and until he has seen
her nothing definite can be done.’
‘What sort of a craft is she, sir?’ asked the stroke oar, a fat-faced man
who seemed absolutely incapable of any serious exertion.
‘I don’t know,’ Racksole replied; ‘but as near as I can judge, she’s about
sixty feet in length, and painted black. I fancy I shall recognize her when I
see her.’

‘Not much to go by, that,’ exclaimed the other man curtly. But he said no
more. He, as well as his mate, had received from Theodore Racksole one
English sovereign as a kind of preliminary fee, and an English sovereign
will do a lot towards silencing the natural sarcastic tendencies and free
speech of a Thames waterman.
‘There’s one thing I noticed,’ said Racksole suddenly, ‘and I forgot to tell
you of it, Mr Hazell. Her screw seemed to move with a rather irregular,
lame sort of beat.’
Both watermen burst into a laugh.
‘Oh,’ said the fat rower, ‘I know what you’re after, sir—it’s Jack Everett’s
launch, commonly called “Squirm”. She’s got a four-bladed propeller, and
one blade is broken off short.’
‘Ay, that’s it, sure enough,’ agreed the man in the bows. ‘And if it’s her
you want, I seed her lying up against Cherry Gardens Pier this very
morning.’
‘Let us go to Cherry Gardens Pier by all means, as soon as possible,’
Racksole said, and the boat swung across stream and then began to creep
down by the right bank, feeling its way past wharves, many of which, even
at that hour, were still busy with their cranes, that descended empty into the
bellies of ships and came up full. As the two watermen gingerly
manoeuvred the boat on the ebbing tide, Hazell explained to the millionaire
that the ‘Squirm’ was one of the most notorious craft on the river. It
appeared that when anyone had a nefarious or underhand scheme afoot
which necessitated river work Everett’s launch was always available for a
suitable monetary consideration. The ‘Squirm’ had got itself into a thousand
scrapes, and out of those scrapes again with safety, if not precisely with
honour. The river police kept a watchful eye on it, and the chief marvel
about the whole thing was that old Everett, the owner, had never yet been
seriously compromised in any illegal escapade. Not once had the officer of
the law been able to prove anything definite against the proprietor of the
‘Squirm’, though several of its quondam hirers were at that very moment in
various of Her Majesty’s prisons throughout the country. Latterly, however,
the launch, with its damaged propeller, which Everett consistently refused
to have repaired, had acquired an evil reputation, even among evil-doers,
and this fraternity had gradually come to abandon it for less easily
recognizable craft.

‘Your friend, Mr Tom Jackson,’ said Hazell to Racksole, ‘committed an
error of discretion when he hired the “Squirm”. A scoundrel of his
experience and calibre ought certainly to have known better than that. You
cannot fail to get a clue now.’
By this time the boat was approaching Cherry Gardens Pier, but
unfortunately a thin night-fog had swept over the river, and objects could
not be discerned with any clearness beyond a distance of thirty yards. As
the Customs boat scraped down past the pier all its occupants strained eyes
for a glimpse of the mysterious launch, but nothing could be seen of it. The
boat continued to float idly down-stream, the men resting on their oars.
Then they narrowly escaped bumping a large Norwegian sailing vessel at
anchor with her stem pointing down-stream. This ship they passed on the
port side. Just as they got clear of her bowsprit the fat man cried out
excitedly, ‘There’s her nose!’ and he put the boat about and began to pull
back against the tide. And surely the missing ‘Squirm’ was comfortably
anchored on the starboard quarter of the Norwegian ship, hidden neatly
between the ship and the shore. The men pulled very quietly alongside.

Chapter Twenty-Six THE NIGHT CHASE AND
THE MUDLARK
‘I’LL board her to start with,’ said Hazell, whispering to Racksole. ‘I’ll
make out that I suspect they’ve got dutiable goods on board, and that will
give me a chance to have a good look at her.’
Dressed in his official overcoat and peaked cap, he stepped, rather
jauntily as Racksole thought, on to the low deck of the launch. ‘Anyone
aboard?’
Racksole heard him cry out, and a woman’s voice answered. ‘I’m a
Customs examining officer, and I want to search the launch,’ Hazell
shouted, and then disappeared down into the little saloon amidships, and
Racksole heard no more. It seemed to the millionaire that Hazell had been
gone hours, but at length he returned.
‘Can’t find anything,’ he said, as he jumped into the boat, and then
privately to Racksole: ‘There’s a woman on board. Looks as if she might
coincide with your description of Miss Spencer. Steam’s up, but there’s no
engineer. I asked where the engineer was, and she inquired what business
that was of mine, and requested me to get through with my own business
and clear off. Seems rather a smart sort. I poked my nose into everything,
but I saw no sign of any one else. Perhaps we’d better pull away and lie
near for a bit, just to see if anything queer occurs.’
‘You’re quite sure he isn’t on board?’ Racksole asked.
‘Quite,’ said Hazell positively: ‘I know how to search a vessel. See this,’
and he handed to Racksole a sort of steel skewer, about two feet long, with
a wooden handle. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is one of the Customs’ aids to searching.’
‘I suppose it wouldn’t do to go on board and carry off the lady?’
Racksole suggested doubtfully.
‘Well,’ Hazell began, with equal doubtfulness, ‘as for that—’
‘Where’s ‘e orf?’ It was the man in the bows who interrupted Hazell.
Following the direction of the man’s finger, both Hazell and Racksole
saw with more or less distinctness a dinghy slip away from the forefoot of

the Norwegian vessel and disappear downstream into the mist.
‘It’s Jules, I’ll swear,’ cried Racksole. ‘After him, men. Ten pounds
apiece if we overtake him!’
‘Lay down to it now, boys!’ said Hazell, and the heavy Customs boat shot
out in pursuit.
‘This is going to be a lark,’ Racksole remarked.
‘Depends on what you call a lark,’ said Hazell; ‘it’s not much of a lark
tearing down midstream like this in a fog. You never know when you
mayn’t be in kingdom come with all these barges knocking around. I expect
that chap hid in the dinghy when he first caught sight of us, and then
slipped his painter as soon as I’d gone.’
The boat was moving at a rapid pace with the tide. Steering was a matter
of luck and instinct more than anything else. Every now and then Hazell,
who held the lines, was obliged to jerk the boat’s head sharply round to
avoid a barge or an anchored vessel. It seemed to Racksole that vessels
were anchored all over the stream. He looked about him anxiously, but for a
long time he could see nothing but mist and vague nautical forms. Then
suddenly he said, quietly enough, ‘We’re on the right road; I can see him
ahead.
We’re gaining on him.’ In another minute the dinghy was plainly visible,
not twenty yards away, and the sculler—sculling frantically now—was
unmistakably Jules—Jules in a light tweed suit and a bowler hat.
‘You were right,’ Hazell said; ‘this is a lark. I believe I’m getting quite
excited. It’s more exciting than playing the trombone in an orchestra. I’ll
run him down, eh?—and then we can drag the chap in from the water.’
Racksole nodded, but at that moment a barge, with her red sails set, stood
out of the fog clean across the bows of the Customs boat, which narrowly
escaped instant destruction. When they got clear, and the usual interchange
of calm, nonchalant swearing was over, the dinghy was barely to be
discerned in the mist, and the fat man was breathing in such a manner that
his sighs might almost have been heard on the banks. Racksole wanted
violently to do something, but there was nothing to do; he could only sit
supine by Hazell’s side in the stern-sheets. Gradually they began again to
overtake the dinghy, whose one-man crew was evidently tiring. As they
came up, hand over fist, the dinghy’s nose swerved aside, and the tiny craft

passed down a water-lane between two anchored mineral barges, which lay
black and deserted about fifty yards from the Surrey shore. ‘To starboard,’
said Racksole. ‘No, man!’
Hazell replied; ‘we can’t get through there. He’s bound to come out
below; it’s only a feint. I’ll keep our nose straight ahead.’
And they went on, the fat man pounding away, with a face which
glistened even in the thick gloom. It was an empty dinghy which emerged
from between the two barges and went drifting and revolving down towards
Greenwich.
The fat man gasped a word to his comrade, and the Customs boat stopped
dead.
‘’E’s all right,’ said the man in the bows. ‘If it’s ‘im you want, ‘e’s on one
o’ them barges, so you’ve only got to step on and take ‘im orf.’
‘That’s all,’ said a voice out of the depths of the nearest barge, and it was
the voice of Jules, otherwise known as Mr Tom Jackson.
‘’Ear ‘im?’ said the fat man smiling. ‘’E’s a good ‘un, ‘e is. But if I was
you, Mr Hazell, or you, sir, I shouldn’t step on to that barge so quick as all
that.’
They backed the boat under the stem of the nearest barge and gazed
upwards.
‘It’s all right,’ said Racksole to Hazell; ‘I’ve got a revolver. How can I
clamber up there?’
‘Yes, I dare say you’ve got a revolver all right,’ Hazell replied sharply.
‘But you mustn’t use it. There mustn’t be any noise. We should have the
river police down on us in a twinkling if there was a revolver shot, and it
would be the ruin of me. If an inquiry was held the Commissioners
wouldn’t take any official notice of the fact that my superior officer had put
me on to this job, and I should be requested to leave the service.’
‘Have no fear on that score,’ said Racksole. ‘I shall, of course, take all
responsibility.’
‘It wouldn’t matter how much responsibility you took,’ Hazell retorted;
‘you wouldn’t put me back into the service, and my career would be at an
end.’

‘But there are other careers,’ said Racksole, who was really anxious to
lame his ex-waiter by means of a judiciously-aimed bullet. ‘There are other
careers.’
‘The Customs is my career,’ said Hazell, ‘so let’s have no shooting. We’ll
wait about a bit; he can’t escape. You can have my skewer if you like’—and
he gave Racksole his searching instrument. ‘And you can do what you
please, provided you do it neatly and don’t make a row over it.’
For a few moments the four men were passive in the boat, surrounded by
swirling mist, with black water beneath them, and towering above them a
half-loaded barge with a desperate and resourceful man on board. Suddenly
the mist parted and shrivelled away in patches, as though before the breath
of some monster. The sky was visible; it was a clear sky, and the moon was
shining. The transformation was just one of those meteorological quick-
changes which happen most frequently on a great river.
‘That’s a sight better,’ said the fat man. At the same moment a head
appeared over the edge of the barge. It was Jules’ face—dark, sinister and
leering.
‘Is it Mr Racksole in that boat?’ he inquired calmly; ‘because if so, let Mr
Racksole step up. Mr Racksole has caught me, and he can have me for the
asking. Here I am.’ He stood up to his full height on the barge, tall against
the night sky, and all the occupants of the boat could see that he held firmly
clasped in his right hand a short dagger. ‘Now, Mr Racksole, you’ve been
after me for a long time,’ he continued; ‘here I am. Why don’t you step up?
If you haven’t got the pluck yourself, persuade someone else to step up in
your place ... the same fair treatment will be accorded to all.’ And Jules
laughed a low, penetrating laugh.
He was in the midst of this laugh when he lurched suddenly forward.
‘What’r’ you doing of aboard my barge? Off you goes!’ It was a boy’s
small shrill voice that sounded in the night. A ragged boy’s small form had
appeared silently behind Jules, and two small arms with a vicious shove
precipitated him into the water. He fell with a fine gurgling splash. It was at
once obvious that swimming was not among Jules’ accomplishments. He
floundered wildly and sank. When he reappeared he was dragged into the
Customs boat. Rope was produced, and in a minute or two the man lay
ignominiously bound in the bottom of the boat. With the aid of a mudlark—
a mere barge boy, who probably had no more right on the barge than Jules

himself—Racksole had won his game. For the first time for several weeks
the millionaire experienced a sensation of equanimity and satisfaction. He
leaned over the prostrate form of Jules, Hazell’s professional skewer in his
hand.
‘What are you going to do with him now?’ asked Hazell.
‘We’ll row up to the landing steps in front of the Grand Babylon. He
shall be well lodged at my hotel, I promise him.’
Jules spoke no word.
Before Racksole parted company with the Customs man that night Jules
had been safely transported into the Grand Babylon Hôtel and the two
watermen had received their £10 apiece.
‘You will sleep here?’ said the millionaire to Mr George Hazell. ‘It is
late.’
‘With pleasure,’ said Hazell. The next morning he found a sumptuous
breakfast awaiting him, and in his table-napkin was a Bank of England note
for a hundred pounds. But, though he did not hear of them till much later,
many things had happened before Hazell consumed that sumptuous
breakfast.

Chapter Twenty-Seven THE CONFESSION OF
MR TOM JACKSON
IT happened that the small bedroom occupied by Jules during the years
he was head-waiter at the Grand Babylon had remained empty since his
sudden dismissal by Theodore Racksole. No other head-waiter had been
formally appointed in his place; and, indeed, the absence of one man—even
the unique Jules—could scarcely have been noticed in the enormous staff of
a place like the Grand Babylon. The functions of a head-waiter are
generally more ornamental, spectacular, and morally impressive than useful,
and it was so at the great hotel on the Embankment. Racksole accordingly
had the excellent idea of transporting his prisoner, with as much secrecy as
possible, to this empty bedroom. There proved to be no difficulty in doing
so; Jules showed himself perfectly amenable to a show of superior force.
Racksole took upstairs with him an old commissionaire who had been
attached to the outdoor service of the hotel for many years—a grey-haired
man, wiry as a terrier and strong as a mastiff. Entering the bedroom with
Jules, whose hands were bound, he told the commissionaire to remain
outside the door.
Jules’ bedroom was quite an ordinary apartment, though perhaps slightly
superior to the usual accommodation provided for servants in the
caravanserais of the West End. It was about fourteen by twelve. It was
furnished with a bedstead, a small wardrobe, a small washstand and
dressing-table, and two chairs. There were two hooks behind the door, a
strip of carpet by the bed, and some cheap ornaments on the iron
mantelpiece. There was also one electric light. The window was a little
square one, high up from the floor, and it looked on the inner quadrangle.
The room was on the top storey—the eighth—and from it you had a view
sheer to the ground. Twenty feet below ran a narrow cornice about a foot
wide; three feet or so above the window another and wider cornice jutted
out, and above that was the high steep roof of the hotel, though you could
not see it from the window. As Racksole examined the window and the
outlook, he said to himself that Jules could not escape by that exit, at any

rate. He gave a glance up the chimney, and saw that the flue was far too
small to admit a man’s body.
Then he called in the commissionaire, and together they bound Jules
firmly to the bedstead, allowing him, however, to lie down. All the while
the captive never opened his mouth—merely smiled a smile of disdain.
Finally Racksole removed the ornaments, the carpet, the chairs and the
hooks, and wrenched away the switch of the electric light. Then he and the
commissionaire left the room, and Racksole locked the door on the outside
and put the key in his pocket.
‘You will keep watch here,’ he said to the commissionaire, ‘through the
night. You can sit on this chair. Don’t go to sleep. If you hear the slightest
noise in the room blow your cab-whistle; I will arrange to answer the
signal. If there is no noise do nothing whatever. I don’t want this talked
about, you understand. I shall trust you; you can trust me.’
‘But the servants will see me here when they get up to-morrow,’ said the
commissionaire, with a faint smile, ‘and they will be pretty certain to ask
what I’m doing of up here. What shall I say to ‘em?’
‘You’ve been a soldier, haven’t you?’ asked Racksole.
‘I’ve seen three campaigns, sir,’ was the reply, and, with a gesture of
pardonable pride, the grey-haired fellow pointed to the medals on his breast.
‘Well, supposing you were on sentry duty and some meddlesome person
in camp asked you what you were doing—what should you say?’
‘I should tell him to clear off or take the consequences, and pretty quick
too.’
‘Do that to-morrow morning, then, if necessary,’ said Racksole, and
departed.
It was then about one o’clock a.m. The millionaire retired to bed—not his
own bed, but a bed on the seventh storey. He did not, however, sleep very
long. Shortly after dawn he was wide awake, and thinking busily about
Jules.
He was, indeed, very curious to know Jules’ story, and he determined, if
the thing could be done at all, by persuasion or otherwise, to extract it from
him. With a man of Theodore Racksole’s temperament there is no time like
the present, and at six o’clock, as the bright morning sun brought gaiety into
the window, he dressed and went upstairs again to the eighth storey. The

commissionaire sat stolid, but alert on his chair, and, at the sight of his
master, rose and saluted.
‘Anything happened?’ Racksole asked.
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘Servants say anything?’
‘Only a dozen or so of ‘em are up yet, sir. One of ‘em asked what I was
playing at, and so I told her I was looking after a bull bitch and a litter of
pups that you was very particular about, sir.’
‘Good,’ said Racksole, as he unlocked the door and entered the room. All
was exactly as he had left it, except that Jules who had been lying on his
back, had somehow turned over and was now lying on his face. He gazed
silently, scowling at the millionaire. Racksole greeted him and
ostentatiously took a revolver from his hip-pocket and laid it on the
dressing-table. Then he seated himself on the dressing-table by the side of
the revolver, his legs dangling an inch or two above the floor.
‘I want to have a talk to you, Jackson,’ he began.
‘You can talk to me as much as you like,’ said Jules. ‘I shan’t interfere,
you may bet on that.’
‘I should like you to answer some questions.’
‘That’s different,’ said Jules. ‘I’m not going to answer any questions
while I’m tied up like this. You may bet on that, too.’
‘It will pay you to be reasonable,’ said Racksole.
‘I’m not going to answer any questions while I’m tied up.’
‘I’ll unfasten your legs, if you like,’ Racksole suggested politely, ‘then
you can sit up. It’s no use you pretending you’ve been uncomfortable,
because I know you haven’t. I calculate you’ve been treated very
handsomely, my son. There you are!’ and he loosened the lower extremities
of his prisoner from their bonds. ‘Now I repeat you may as well be
reasonable. You may as well admit that you’ve been fairly beaten in the
game and act accordingly. I was determined to beat you, by myself, without
the police, and I’ve done it.’
‘You’ve done yourself,’ retorted Jules. ‘You’ve gone against the law. If
you’d had any sense you wouldn’t have meddled; you’d have left
everything to the police. They’d have muddled about for a year or two, and

then done nothing. Who’s going to tell the police now? Are you? Are you
going to give me up to ‘em, and say, “Here, I’ve caught him for you”. If
you do they’ll ask you to explain several things, and then you’ll look
foolish. One crime doesn’t excuse another, and you’ll find that out.’
With unerring insight, Jules had perceived exactly the difficulty of
Racksole’s position, and it was certainly a difficulty which Racksole did not
attempt to minimize to himself. He knew well that it would have to be
faced. He did not, however, allow Jules to guess his thoughts.
‘Meanwhile,’ he said calmly to the other, ‘you’re here and my prisoner.
You’ve committed a variegated assortment of crimes, and among them is
murder. You are due to be hung. You know that. There is no reason why I
should call in the police at all. It will be perfectly easy for me to finish you
off, as you deserve, myself. I shall only be carrying out justice, and robbing
the hangman of his fee. Precisely as I brought you into the hotel, I can take
you out again. A few days ago you borrowed or stole a steam yacht at
Ostend. What you have done with it I don’t know, nor do I care. But I
strongly suspect that my daughter had a narrow escape of being murdered
on your steam yacht. Now I have a steam yacht of my own. Suppose I use it
as you used yours! Suppose I smuggle you on to it, steam out to sea, and
then ask you to step off it into the ocean one night. Such things have been
done.
Such things will be done again. If I acted so, I should at least, have the
satisfaction of knowing that I had relieved society from the incubus of a
scoundrel.’
‘But you won’t,’ Jules murmured.
‘No,’ said Racksole steadily, ‘I won’t—if you behave yourself this
morning. But I swear to you that if you don’t I will never rest till you are
dead, police or no police. You don’t know Theodore Racksole.’
‘I believe you mean it,’ Jules exclaimed, with an air of surprised interest,
as though he had discovered something of importance.
‘I believe I do,’ Racksole resumed. ‘Now listen. At the best, you will be
given up to the police. At the worst, I shall deal with you myself. With the
police you may have a chance—you may get off with twenty years’ penal
servitude, because, though it is absolutely certain that you murdered
Reginald Dimmock, it would be a little difficult to prove the case against

you. But with me you would have no chance whatever. I have a few
questions to put to you, and it will depend on how you answer them
whether I give you up to the police or take the law into my own hands. And
let me tell you that the latter course would be much simpler for me. And I
would take it, too, did I not feel that you were a very clever and exceptional
man; did I not have a sort of sneaking admiration for your detestable skill
and ingenuity.’
‘You think, then, that I am clever?’ said Jules. ‘You are right. I am. I
should have been much too clever for you if luck had not been against me.
You owe your victory, not to skill, but to luck.’
‘That is what the vanquished always say. Waterloo was a bit of pure luck
for the English, no doubt, but it was Waterloo all the same.’
Jules yawned elaborately. ‘What do you want to know?’ he inquired, with
politeness.
‘First and foremost, I want to know the names of your accomplices inside
this hotel.’
‘I have no more,’ said Jules. ‘Rocco was the last.’
‘Don’t begin by lying to me. If you had no accomplice, how did you
contrive that one particular bottle of Romanée-Conti should be served to his
Highness Prince Eugen?’
‘Then you discovered that in time, did you?’ said Jules. ‘I was afraid so.
Let me explain that that needed no accomplice. The bottle was topmost in
the bin, and naturally it would be taken. Moreover, I left it sticking out a
little further than the rest.’
‘You did not arrange, then, that Hubbard should be taken ill the night
before last?’
‘I had no idea,’ said Jules, ‘that the excellent Hubbard was not enjoying
his accustomed health.’
‘Tell me,’ said Racksole, ‘who or what is the origin of your vendetta
against the life of Prince Eugen?’
‘I had no vendetta against the life of Prince Eugen,’ said Jules, ‘at least,
not to begin with. I merely undertook, for a consideration, to see that Prince
Eugen did not have an interview with a certain Mr Sampson Levi in London
before a certain date, that was all. It seemed simple enough. I had been

engaged in far more complicated transactions before. I was convinced that I
could manage it, with the help of Rocco and Em—and Miss Spencer.’
‘Is that woman your wife?’
‘She would like to be,’ he sneered. ‘Please don’t interrupt. I had
completed my arrangements, when you so inconsiderately bought the hotel.
I don’t mind admitting now that from the very moment when you came
across me that night in the corridor I was secretly afraid of you, though I
scarcely admitted the fact even to myself then. I thought it safer to shift the
scene of our operations to Ostend. I had meant to deal with Prince Eugen in
this hotel, but I decided, then, to intercept him on the Continent, and I
despatched Miss Spencer with some instructions. Troubles never come
singly, and it happened that just then that fool Dimmock, who had been in
the swim with us, chose to prove refractory. The slightest hitch would have
upset everything, and I was obliged to—to clear him off the scene. He
wanted to back out—he had a bad attack of conscience, and violent
measures were essential. I regret his untimely decease, but he brought it on
himself. Well, everything was going serenely when you and your brilliant
daughter, apparently determined to meddle, turned up again among us at
Ostend. Only twenty-four hours, however, had to elapse before the date
which had been mentioned to me by my employers. I kept poor little Eugen
for the allotted time, and then you managed to get hold of him. I do not
deny that you scored there, though, according to my original instructions,
you scored too late. The time had passed, and so, so far as I knew, it didn’t
matter a pin whether Prince Eugen saw Mr Sampson Levi or not. But my
employers were still uneasy. They were uneasy even after little Eugen had
lain ill in Ostend for several weeks. It appears that they feared that even at
that date an interview between Prince Eugen and Mr Sampson Levi might
work harm to them. So they applied to me again. This time they wanted
Prince Eugen to be—em—finished off entirely. They offered high terms.’
‘What terms?’
‘I had received fifty thousand pounds for the first job, of which Rocco
had half. Rocco was also to be made a member of a certain famous
European order, if things went right. That was what he coveted far more
than the money—the vain fellow! For the second job I was offered a
hundred thousand. A tolerably large sum. I regret that I have not been able
to earn it.’

‘Do you mean to tell me,’ asked Racksole, horror-struck by this calm
confession, in spite of his previous knowledge, ‘that you were offered a
hundred thousand pounds to poison Prince Eugen?’
‘You put it rather crudely,’ said Jules in reply. ‘I prefer to say that I was
offered a hundred thousand pounds if Prince Eugen should die within a
reasonable time.’
‘And who were your damnable employers?’
‘That, honestly, I do not know.’
‘You know, I suppose, who paid you the first fifty thousand pounds, and
who promised you the hundred thousand.’
‘Well,’ said Jules, ‘I know vaguely. I know that he came via Vienna from
—em—Bosnia. My impression was that the affair had some bearing, direct
or indirect, on the projected marriage of the King of Bosnia. He is a young
monarch, scarcely out of political leading-strings, as it were, and doubtless
his Ministers thought that they had better arrange his marriage for him.
They tried last year, and failed because the Princess whom they had in mind
had cast her sparkling eyes on another Prince. That Prince happened to be
Prince Eugen of Posen. The Ministers of the King of Bosnia knew exactly
the circumstances of Prince Eugen. They knew that he could not marry
without liquidating his debts, and they knew that he could only liquidate his
debts through this Jew, Sampson Levi. Unfortunately for me, they
ultimately wanted to make too sure of Prince Eugen. They were afraid he
might after all arrange his marriage without the aid of Mr Sampson Levi,
and so—well, you know the rest.... It is a pity that the poor little innocent
King of Bosnia can’t have the Princess of his Ministers’ choice.’
‘Then you think that the King himself had no part in this abominable
crime?’
‘I think decidedly not.’
‘I am glad of that,’ said Racksole simply. ‘And now, the name of your
immediate employer.’
‘He was merely an agent. He called himself Sleszak—S-l-e-s-z-a-k. But I
imagine that that wasn’t his real name. I don’t know his real name. An old
man, he often used to be found at the Hôtel Ritz, Paris.’
‘Mr Sleszak and I will meet,’ said Racksole.

‘Not in this world,’ said Jules quickly. ‘He is dead. I heard only last night
—just before our little tussle.’
There was a silence.
‘It is well,’ said Racksole at length. ‘Prince Eugen lives, despite all plots.
After all, justice is done.’
‘Mr Racksole is here, but he can see no one, Miss.’ The words came from
behind the door, and the voice was the commissionaire’s. Racksole started
up, and went towards the door.
‘Nonsense,’ was the curt reply, in feminine tones. ‘Move aside instantly.’
The door opened, and Nella entered. There were tears in her eyes.
‘Oh! Dad,’ she exclaimed, ‘I’ve only just heard you were in the hotel. We
looked for you everywhere. Come at once, Prince Eugen is dying—’ Then
she saw the man sitting on the bed, and stopped.
Later, when Jules was alone again, he remarked to himself, ‘I may get
that hundred thousand.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight THE STATE BEDROOM
ONCE MORE
WHEN, immediately after the episode of the bottle of Romanée-Conti in
the State dining-room, Prince Aribert and old Hans found that Prince Eugen
had sunk in an unconscious heap over his chair, both the former thought, at
the first instant, that Eugen must have already tasted the poisoned wine. But
a moment’s reflection showed that this was not possible. If the Hereditary
Prince of Posen was dying or dead, his condition was due to some other
agency than the Romanée-Conti. Aribert bent over him, and a powerful
odour from the man’s lips at once disclosed the cause of the disaster: it was
the odour of laudanum. Indeed, the smell of that sinister drug seemed now
to float heavily over the whole table. Across Aribert’s mind there flashed
then the true explanation. Prince Eugen, taking advantage of Aribert’s
attention being momentarily diverted; and yielding to a sudden impulse of
despair, had decided to poison himself, and had carried out his intention on
the spot.
The laudanum must have been already in his pocket, and this fact went to
prove that the unfortunate Prince had previously contemplated such a
proceeding, even after his definite promise. Aribert remembered now with
painful vividness his nephew’s words: ‘I withdraw my promise. Observe
that—I withdraw it.’ It must have been instantly after the utterance of that
formal withdrawal that Eugen attempted to destroy himself.
‘It’s laudanum, Hans,’ Aribert exclaimed, rather helplessly.
‘Surely his Highness has not taken poison?’ said Hans. ‘It is impossible!’
‘I fear it is only too possible,’ said the other. ‘It’s laudanum. What are we
to do? Quick, man!’
‘His Highness must be roused, Prince. He must have an emetic. We had
better carry him to the bedroom.’
They did, and laid him on the great bed; and then Aribert mixed an
emetic of mustard and water, and administered it, but without any effect.
The sufferer lay motionless, with every muscle relaxed. His skin was ice-

cold to the touch, and the eyelids, half-drawn, showed that the pupils were
painfully contracted.
‘Go out, and send for a doctor, Hans. Say that Prince Eugen has been
suddenly taken ill, but that it isn’t serious. The truth must never be known.’
‘He must be roused, sire,’ Hans said again, as he hurried from the room.
Aribert lifted his nephew from the bed, shook him, pinched him, flicked
him cruelly, shouted at him, dragged him about, but to no avail. At length
he desisted, from mere physical fatigue, and laid the Prince back again on
the bed. Every minute that elapsed seemed an hour. Alone with the
unconscious organism in the silence of the great stately chamber, under the
cold yellow glare of the electric lights, Aribert became a prey to the most
despairing thoughts. The tragedy of his nephew’s career forced itself upon
him, and it occurred to him that an early and shameful death had all along
been inevitable for this good-natured, weak-purposed, unhappy child of a
historic throne. A little good fortune, and his character, so evenly balanced
between right and wrong, might have followed the proper path, and Eugen
might have figured at any rate with dignity on the European stage. But now
it appeared that all was over, the last stroke played. And in this disaster
Aribert saw the ruin of his own hopes. For Aribert would have to occupy his
nephew’s throne, and he felt instinctively that nature had not cut him out for
a throne. By a natural impulse he inwardly rebelled against the prospect of
monarchy. Monarchy meant so much for which he knew himself to be
entirely unfitted. It meant a political marriage, which means a forced
marriage, a union against inclination. And then what of Nella—Nella!
Hans returned. ‘I have sent for the nearest doctor, and also for a
specialist,’ he said.
‘Good,’ said Aribert. ‘I hope they will hurry.’ Then he sat down and
wrote a card. ‘Take this yourself to Miss Racksole. If she is out of the hotel,
ascertain where she is and follow her. Understand, it is of the first
importance.’
Hans bowed, and departed for the second time, and Aribert was alone
again.
He gazed at Eugen, and made another frantic attempt to rouse him from
the deadly stupor, but it was useless. He walked away to the window:
through the opened casement he could hear the tinkle of passing hansoms
on the Embankment below, whistles of door-keepers, and the hoot of steam

tugs on the river. The world went on as usual, it appeared. It was an absurd
world.
He desired nothing better than to abandon his princely title, and live as a
plain man, the husband of the finest woman on earth.... But now!...
Pah! How selfish he was, to be thinking of himself when Eugen lay
dying. Yet—Nella!
The door opened, and a man entered, who was obviously the doctor. A
few curt questions, and he had grasped the essentials of the case. ‘Oblige
me by ringing the bell, Prince. I shall want some hot water, and an able-
bodied man and a nurse.’
‘Who wants a nurse?’ said a voice, and Nella came quietly in. ‘I am a
nurse,’ she added to the doctor, ‘and at your orders.’
The next two hours were a struggle between life and death. The first
doctor, a specialist who followed him, Nella, Prince Aribert, and old Hans
formed, as it were, a league to save the dying man. None else in the hotel
knew the real seriousness of the case. When a Prince falls ill, and especially
by his own act, the precise truth is not issued broadcast to the universe.
According to official intelligence, a Prince is never seriously ill until he
is dead. Such is statecraft.
The worst feature of Prince Eugen’s case was that emetics proved futile.
Neither of the doctors could explain their failure, but it was only too
apparent. The league was reduced to helplessness. At last the great
specialist from Manchester Square gave it out that there was no chance for
Prince Eugen unless the natural vigour of his constitution should prove
capable of throwing off the poison unaided by scientific assistance, as a
drunkard can sleep off his potion. Everything had been tried, even to
artificial respiration and the injection of hot coffee. Having emitted this
pronouncement, the great specialist from Manchester Square left. It was one
o’clock in the morning. By one of those strange and futile coincidences
which sometimes startle us by their subtle significance, the specialist met
Theodore Racksole and his captive as they were entering the hotel. Neither
had the least suspicion of the other’s business.
In the State bedroom the small group of watchers surrounded the bed.
The slow minutes filed away in dreary procession. Another hour passed.

Then the figure on the bed, hitherto so motionless, twitched and moved; the
lips parted.
‘There is hope,’ said the doctor, and administered a stimulant which was
handed to him by Nella.
In a quarter of an hour the patient had regained consciousness. For the
ten thousandth time in the history of medicine a sound constitution had
accomplished a miracle impossible to the accumulated medical skill of
centuries.
In due course the doctor left, saying that Prince Eugen was ‘on the high
road to recovery,’ and promising to come again within a few hours.
Morning had dawned. Nella drew the great curtains, and let in a flood of
sunlight.
Old Hans, overcome by fatigue, dozed in a chair in a far corner of the
room.
The reaction had been too much for him. Nella and Prince Aribert looked
at each other. They had not exchanged a word about themselves, yet each
knew what the other had been thinking. They clasped hands with a perfect
understanding. Their brief love-making had been of the silent kind, and it
was silent now. No word was uttered. A shadow had passed from over them,
but only their eyes expressed relief and joy.
‘Aribert!’ The faint call came from the bed. Aribert went to the bedside,
while Nella remained near the window.
‘What is it, Eugen?’ he said. ‘You are better now.’
‘You think so?’ murmured the other. ‘I want you to forgive me for all
this, Aribert. I must have caused you an intolerable trouble. I did it so
clumsily; that is what annoys me. Laudanum was a feeble expedient; but I
could think of nothing else, and I daren’t ask anyone for advice. I was
obliged to go out and buy the stuff for myself. It was all very awkward.
But, thank goodness, it has not been ineffectual.’
‘What do you mean, Eugen? You are better. In a day or so you will be
perfectly recovered.’
‘I am dying,’ said Eugen quietly. ‘Do not be deceived. I die because I
wish to die. It is bound to be so. I know by the feel of my heart. In a few
hours it will be over. The throne of Posen will be yours, Aribert. You will
fill it more worthily than I have done. Don’t let them know over there that I

poisoned myself. Swear Hans to secrecy; swear the doctors to secrecy; and
breathe no word yourself. I have been a fool, but I do not wish it to be
known that I was also a coward. Perhaps it is not cowardice; perhaps it is
courage, after all—courage to cut the knot. I could not have survived the
disgrace of any revelations, Aribert, and revelations would have been sure
to come. I have made a fool of myself, but I am ready to pay for it. We of
Posen—we always pay—everything except our debts. Ah! those debts! Had
it not been for those I could have faced her who was to have been my wife,
to have shared my throne. I could have hidden my past, and begun again.
With her help I really could have begun again. But Fate has been against me
—always! always! By the way, what was that plot against me, Aribert? I
forget, I forget.’
His eyes closed. There was a sudden noise. Old Hans had slipped from
his chair to the floor. He picked himself up, dazed, and crept shamefacedly
out of the room.
Aribert took his nephew’s hand.
‘Nonsense, Eugen! You are dreaming. You will be all right soon. Pull
yourself together.’
‘All because of a million,’ the sick man moaned. ‘One miserable million
English pounds. The national debt of Posen is fifty millions, and I, the
Prince of Posen, couldn’t borrow one. If I could have got it, I might have
held my head up again. Good-bye, Aribert.... Who is that girl?’
Aribert looked up. Nella was standing silent at the foot of the bed, her
eyes moist. She came round to the bedside, and put her hand on the
patient’s heart. Scarcely could she feel its pulsation, and to Aribert her eyes
expressed a sudden despair.
At that moment Hans re-entered the room and beckoned to her.
‘I have heard that Herr Racksole has returned to the hotel,’ he whispered,
‘and that he has captured that man Jules, who they say is such a villain.’
Several times during the night Nella inquired for her father, but could
gain no knowledge of his whereabouts. Now, at half-past six in the
morning, a rumour had mysteriously spread among the servants of the hotel
about the happenings of the night before. How it had originated no one
could have determined, but it had originated.
‘Where is my father?’ Nella asked of Hans.

He shrugged his shoulders, and pointed upwards. ‘Somewhere at the top,
they say.’
Nella almost ran out of the room. Her interruption of the interview
between Jules and Theodore Racksole has already been described. As she
came downstairs with her father she said again, ‘Prince Eugen is dying—
but I think you can save him.’
‘I?’ exclaimed Theodore.
‘Yes,’ she repeated positively. ‘I will tell you what I want you to do, and
you must do it.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine THEODORE IS CALLED
TO THE RESCUE
AS Nella passed downstairs from the top storey with her father—the lifts
had not yet begun to work—she drew him into her own room, and closed
the door.
‘What’s this all about?’ he asked, somewhat mystified, and even alarmed
by the extreme seriousness of her face.
‘Dad,’ the girl began, ‘you are very rich, aren’t you? very, very rich?’ She
smiled anxiously, timidly. He did not remember to have seen that
expression on her face before. He wanted to make a facetious reply, but
checked himself.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am. You ought to know that by this time.’
‘How soon could you realize a million pounds?’
‘A million—what?’ he cried. Even he was staggered by her calm
reference to this gigantic sum. ‘What on earth are you driving at?’
‘A million pounds, I said. That is to say, five million dollars. How soon
could you realize as much as that?’
‘Oh!’ he answered, ‘in about a month, if I went about it neatly enough. I
could unload as much as that in a month without scaring Wall Street and
other places. But it would want some arrangement.’
‘Useless!’ she exclaimed. ‘Couldn’t you do it quicker, if you really had
to?’
‘If I really had to, I could fix it in a week, but it would make things
lively, and I should lose on the job.’
‘Couldn’t you,’ she persisted, ‘couldn’t you go down this morning and
raise a million, somehow, if it was a matter of life and death?’
He hesitated. ‘Look here, Nella,’ he said, ‘what is it you’ve got up your
sleeve?’
‘Just answer my question, Dad, and try not to think that I’m a stark,
staring lunatic.’

‘I rather expect I could get a million this morning, even in London. But it
would cost pretty dear. It might cost me fifty thousand pounds, and there
would be the dickens of an upset in New York—a sort of grand universal
slump in my holdings.’
‘Why should New York know anything about it?’
‘Why should New York know anything about it!’ he repeated. ‘My girl,
when anyone borrows a million sovereigns the whole world knows about it.
Do you reckon that I can go up to the Governors of the Bank of England
and say, “Look here, lend Theodore Racksole a million for a few weeks,
and he’ll give you an IOU and a covering note on stocks”?’
‘But you could get it?’ she asked again.
‘If there’s a million in London I guess I could handle it,’ he replied.
‘Well, Dad,’ and she put her arms round his neck, ‘you’ve just got to go
out and fix it. See? It’s for me. I’ve never asked you for anything really big
before. But I do now. And I want it so badly.’
He stared at her. ‘I award you the prize,’ he said, at length. ‘You deserve
it for colossal and immense coolness. Now you can tell me the true inward
meaning of all this rigmarole. What is it?’
‘I want it for Prince Eugen,’ she began, at first hesitatingly, with pauses.
‘He’s ruined unless he can get a million to pay off his debts. He’s
dreadfully in love with a Princess, and he can’t marry her because of this.
Her parents wouldn’t allow it. He was to have got it from Sampson Levi,
but he arrived too late—owing to Jules.’
‘I know all about that—perhaps more than you do. But I don’t see how it
affects you or me.’
‘The point is this, Dad,’ Nella continued. ‘He’s tried to commit suicide—
he’s so hipped. Yes, real suicide. He took laudanum last night. It didn’t kill
him straight off—he’s got over the first shock, but he’s in a very weak state,
and he means to die. And I truly believe he will die. Now, if you could let
him have that million, Dad, you would save his life.’
Nella’s item of news was a considerable and disconcerting surprise to
Racksole, but he hid his feelings fairly well.
‘I haven’t the least desire to save his life, Nell. I don’t overmuch respect
your Prince Eugen. I’ve done what I could for him—but only for the sake of

seeing fair play, and because I object to conspiracies and secret murders.
It’s a different thing if he wants to kill himself. What I say is: Let him.
Who is responsible for his being in debt to the tune of a million pounds?
He’s only got himself and his bad habits to thank for that. I suppose if he
does happen to peg out, the throne of Posen will go to Prince Aribert. And a
good thing, too! Aribert is worth twenty of his nephew.’
‘That’s just it, Dad,’ she said, eagerly following up her chance. ‘I want
you to save Prince Eugen just because Aribert—Prince Aribert—doesn’t
wish to occupy the throne. He’d much prefer not to have it.’
‘Much prefer not to have it! Don’t talk nonsense. If he’s honest with
himself, he’ll admit that he’ll be jolly glad to have it. Thrones are in his
blood, so to speak.’
‘You are wrong, Father. And the reason is this: If Prince Aribert ascended
the throne of Posen he would be compelled to marry a Princess.’
‘Well! A Prince ought to marry a Princess.’
‘But he doesn’t want to. He wants to give up all his royal rights, and live
as a subject. He wants to marry a woman who isn’t a Princess.’
‘Is she rich?’
‘Her father is,’ said the girl. ‘Oh, Dad! can’t you guess? He—he loves
me.’ Her head fell on Theodore’s shoulder and she began to cry.
The millionaire whistled a very high note. ‘Nell!’ he said at length. ‘And
you? Do you sort of cling to him?’
‘Dad,’ she answered, ‘you are stupid. Do you imagine I should worry
myself like this if I didn’t?’ She smiled through her tears. She knew from
her father’s tone that she had accomplished a victory.
‘It’s a mighty queer arrangement,’ Theodore remarked. ‘But of course if
you think it’ll be of any use, you had better go down and tell your Prince
Eugen that that million can be fixed up, if he really needs it. I expect
there’ll be decent security, or Sampson Levi wouldn’t have mixed himself
up in it.’
‘Thanks, Dad. Don’t come with me; I may manage better alone.’
She gave a formal little curtsey and disappeared. Racksole, who had the
talent, so necessary to millionaires, of attending to several matters at once,
the large with the small, went off to give orders about the breakfast and the

remuneration of his assistant of the evening before, Mr George Hazell. He
then sent an invitation to Mr Felix Babylon’s room, asking that gentleman
to take breakfast with him. After he had related to Babylon the history of
Jules’ capture, and had a long discussion with him upon several points of
hotel management, and especially as to the guarding of wine-cellars,
Racksole put on his hat, sallied forth into the Strand, hailed a hansom, and
was driven to the City. The order and nature of his operations there were too
complex and technical to be described here.
When Nella returned to the State bedroom both the doctor and the great
specialist were again in attendance. The two physicians moved away from
the bedside as she entered, and began to talk quietly together in the
embrasure of the window.
‘A curious case!’ said the specialist.
‘Yes. Of course, as you say, it’s a neurotic temperament that’s at the
bottom of the trouble. When you’ve got that and a vigorous constitution
working one against the other, the results are apt to be distinctly curious.
Do you consider there is any hope, Sir Charles?’
‘If I had seen him when he recovered consciousness I should have said
there was hope. Frankly, when I left last night, or rather this morning, I
didn’t expect to see the Prince alive again—let alone conscious, and able to
talk. According to all the rules of the game, he ought to get over the shock
to the system with perfect ease and certainty. But I don’t think he will. I
don’t think he wants to. And moreover, I think he is still under the influence
of suicidal mania. If he had a razor he would cut his throat. You must keep
his strength up. Inject, if necessary. I will come in this afternoon. I am due
now at St James’s Palace.’ And the specialist hurried away, with an
elaborate bow and a few hasty words of polite reassurances to Prince
Aribert.
When he had gone Prince Aribert took the other doctor aside. ‘Forget
everything, doctor,’ he said, ‘except that I am one man and you are another,
and tell me the truth. Shall you be able to save his Highness? Tell me the
truth.’
‘There is no truth,’ was the doctor’s reply. ‘The future is not in our hands,
Prince.’
‘But you are hopeful? Yes or no.’

The doctor looked at Prince Aribert. ‘No!’ he said shortly. ‘I am not. I am
never hopeful when the patient is not on my side.’
‘You mean—?’
‘I mean that his Royal Highness has no desire to live. You must have
observed that.’
‘Only too well,’ said Aribert.
‘And you are aware of the cause?’
Aribert nodded an affirmative.
‘But cannot remove it?’
‘No,’ said Aribert. He felt a touch on his sleeve. It was Nella’s finger.
With a gesture she beckoned him towards the ante-room.
‘If you choose,’ she said, when they were alone, ‘Prince Eugen can be
saved.
I have arranged it.’
‘You have arranged it?’ He bent over her, almost with an air of alarm.
‘Go and tell him that the million pounds which is so necessary to his
happiness will be forthcoming. Tell him that it will be forthcoming today, if
that will be any satisfaction to him.’
‘But what do you mean by this, Nella?’
‘I mean what I say, Aribert,’ and she sought his hand and took it in hers.
‘Just what I say. If a million pounds will save Prince Eugen’s life, it is at
his disposal.’
‘But how—how have you managed it? By what miracle?’
‘My father,’ she replied softly, ‘will do anything that I ask him. Do not let
us waste time. Go and tell Eugen it is arranged, that all will be well.
Go!’
‘But we cannot accept this—this enormous, this incredible favour. It is
impossible.’
‘Aribert,’ she said quickly, ‘remember you are not in Posen holding a
Court reception. You are in England and you are talking to an American girl
who has always been in the habit of having her own way.’
The Prince threw up his hands and went back in to the bedroom. The
doctor was at a table writing out a prescription. Aribert approached the

bedside, his heart beating furiously. Eugen greeted him with a faint,
fatigued smile.
‘Eugen,’ he whispered, ‘listen carefully to me. I have news. With the
assistance of friends I have arranged to borrow that million for you. It is
quite settled, and you may rely on it. But you must get better. Do you hear
me?’
Eugen almost sat up in bed. ‘Tell me I am not delirious,’ he exclaimed.
‘Of course you aren’t,’ Aribert replied. ‘But you mustn’t sit up. You must
take care of yourself.’
‘Who will lend the money?’ Eugen asked in a feeble, happy whisper.
‘Never mind. You shall hear later. Devote yourself now to getting better.’
The change in the patient’s face was extraordinary. His mind seemed to
have put on an entirely different aspect. The doctor was startled to hear him
murmur a request for food. As for Aribert, he sat down, overcome by the
turmoil of his own thoughts. Till that moment he felt that he had never
appreciated the value and the marvellous power of mere money, of the lucre
which philosophers pretend to despise and men sell their souls for. His heart
almost burst in its admiration for that extraordinary Nella, who by mere
personal force had raised two men out of the deepest slough of despair to
the blissful heights of hope and happiness. ‘These Anglo-Saxons,’ he said to
himself, ‘what a race!’
By the afternoon Eugen was noticeably and distinctly better. The
physicians, puzzled for the third time by the progress of the case,
announced now that all danger was past. The tone of the announcement
seemed to Aribert to imply that the fortunate issue was due wholly to
unrivalled medical skill, but perhaps Aribert was mistaken. Anyhow, he was
in a most charitable mood, and prepared to forgive anything.
‘Nella,’ he said a little later, when they were by themselves again in the
ante-chamber, ‘what am I to say to you? How can I thank you? How can I
thank your father?’
‘You had better not thank my father,’ she said. ‘Dad will affect to regard
the thing as a purely business transaction, as, of course, it is. As for me, you
can—you can—’
‘Well?’

‘Kiss me,’ she said. ‘There! Are you sure you’ve formally proposed to
me, mon prince?’
‘Ah! Nell!’ he exclaimed, putting his arms round her again. ‘Be mine!
That is all I want!’
‘You’ll find,’ she said, ‘that you’ll want Dad’s consent too!’
‘Will he make difficulties? He could not, Nell—not with you!’
‘Better ask him,’ she said sweetly.
A moment later Racksole himself entered the room. ‘Going on all right?’
he enquired, pointing to the bedroom. ‘Excellently,’ the lovers answered
together, and they both blushed.
‘Ah!’ said Racksole. ‘Then, if that’s so, and you can spare a minute, I’ve
something to show you, Prince.’

Chapter Thirty CONCLUSION
‘I’VE a great deal to tell you, Prince,’ Racksole began, as soon as they
were out of the room, ‘and also, as I said, something to show you. Will you
come to my room? We will talk there first. The whole hotel is humming
with excitement.’
‘With pleasure,’ said Aribert.
‘Glad his Highness Prince Eugen is recovering,’ Racksole said, urged by
considerations of politeness.
‘Ah! As to that—’ Aribert began. ‘If you don’t mind, we’ll discuss that
later, Prince,’ Racksole interrupted him.
They were in the proprietor’s private room.
‘I want to tell you all about last night,’ Racksole resumed, ‘about my
capture of Jules, and my examination of him this morning.’ And he
launched into a full account of the whole thing, down to the least details.
‘You see,’ he concluded, ‘that our suspicions as to Bosnia were tolerably
correct. But as regards Bosnia, the more I think about it, the surer I feel that
nothing can be done to bring their criminal politicians to justice.’
‘And as to Jules, what do you propose to do?’
‘Come this way,’ said Racksole, and led Aribert to another room. A sofa
in this room was covered with a linen cloth. Racksole lifted the cloth—he
could never deny himself a dramatic moment—and disclosed the body of a
dead man.
It was Jules, dead, but without a scratch or mark on him.
‘I have sent for the police—not a street constable, but an official from
Scotland Yard,’ said Racksole.
‘How did this happen?’ Aribert asked, amazed and startled. ‘I understood
you to say that he was safely immured in the bedroom.’
‘So he was,’ Racksole replied. ‘I went up there this afternoon, chiefly to
take him some food. The commissionaire was on guard at the door. He had
heard no noise, nothing unusual. Yet when I entered the room Jules was
gone.

He had by some means or other loosened his fastenings; he had then
managed to take the door off the wardrobe. He had moved the bed in front
of the window, and by pushing the wardrobe door three parts out of the
window and lodging the inside end of it under the rail at the head of the
bed, he had provided himself with a sort of insecure platform outside the
window. All this he did without making the least sound. He must then have
got through the window, and stood on the little platform. With his fingers he
would just be able to reach the outer edge of the wide cornice under the roof
of the hotel. By main strength of arms he had swung himself on to this
cornice, and so got on to the roof proper. He would then have the run of the
whole roof.
At the side of the building facing Salisbury Lane there is an iron fire-
escape, which runs right down from the ridge of the roof into a little sunk
yard level with the cellars. Jules must have thought that his escape was
accomplished. But it unfortunately happened that one rung in the iron
escape-ladder had rusted rotten through being badly painted. It gave way,
and Jules, not expecting anything of the kind, fell to the ground. That was
the end of all his cleverness and ingenuity.’
As Racksole ceased, speaking he replaced the linen cloth with a gesture
from which reverence was not wholly absent.
When the grave had closed over the dark and tempestuous career of Tom
Jackson, once the pride of the Grand Babylon, there was little trouble for
the people whose adventures we have described. Miss Spencer, that yellow-
haired, faithful slave and attendant of a brilliant scoundrel, was never heard
of again. Possibly to this day she survives, a mystery to her fellow-
creatures, in the pension of some cheap foreign boarding-house. As for
Rocco, he certainly was heard of again. Several years after the events set
down, it came to the knowledge of Felix Babylon that the unrivalled Rocco
had reached Buenos Aires, and by his culinary skill was there making the
fortune of a new and splendid hotel. Babylon transmitted the information to
Theodore Racksole, and Racksole might, had he chosen, have put the forces
of the law in motion against him. But Racksole, seeing that everything
pointed to the fact that Rocco was now pursuing his vocation honestly,
decided to leave him alone. The one difficulty which Racksole experienced
after the demise of Jules—and it was a difficulty which he had, of course,
anticipated—was connected with the police. The police, very properly,

wanted to know things. They desired to be informed what Racksole had
been doing in the Dimmock affair, between his first visit to Ostend and his
sending for them to take charge of Jules’ dead body. And Racksole was by
no means inclined to tell them everything. Beyond question he had
transgressed the laws of England, and possibly also the laws of Belgium;
and the moral excellence of his motives in doing so was, of course, in the
eyes of legal justice, no excuse for such conduct. The inquest upon Jules
aroused some bother; and about ninety-and-nine separate and distinct
rumours. In the end, however, a compromise was arrived at. Racksole’s first
aim was to pacify the inspector whose clue, which by the way was a false
one, he had so curtly declined to follow up. That done, the rest needed only
tact and patience. He proved to the satisfaction of the authorities that he had
acted in a perfectly honest spirit, though with a high hand, and that
substantial justice had been done. Also, he subtly indicated that, if it came
to the point, he should defy them to do their worst. Lastly, he was able,
through the medium of the United States Ambassador, to bring certain
soothing influences to bear upon the situation.
One afternoon, a fortnight after the recovery of the Hereditary Prince of
Posen, Aribert, who was still staying at the Grand Babylon, expressed a
wish to hold converse with the millionaire. Prince Eugen, accompanied by
Hans and some Court officials whom he had sent for, had departed with
immense éclat, armed with the comfortable million, to arrange formally for
his betrothal.
Touching the million, Eugen had given satisfactory personal security, and
the money was to be paid off in fifteen years.
‘You wish to talk to me, Prince,’ said Racksole to Aribert, when they
were seated together in the former’s room.
‘I wish to tell you,’ replied Aribert, ‘that it is my intention to renounce all
my rights and titles as a Royal Prince of Posen, and to be known in future as
Count Hartz—a rank to which I am entitled through my mother.
Also that I have a private income of ten thousand pounds a year, and a
château and a town house in Posen. I tell you this because I am here to ask
the hand of your daughter in marriage. I love her, and I am vain enough to
believe that she loves me. I have already asked her to be my wife, and she
has consented. We await your approval.’

‘You honour us, Prince,’ said Racksole with a slight smile, ‘and in more
ways than one. May I ask your reason for renouncing your princely titles?’
‘Simply because the idea of a morganatic marriage would be as
repugnant to me as it would be to yourself and to Nella.’
‘That is good.’ The Prince laughed. ‘I suppose it has occurred to you that
ten thousand pounds per annum, for a man in your position, is a somewhat
small income. Nella is frightfully extravagant. I have known her to spend
sixty thousand dollars in a single year, and have nothing to show for it at the
end. Why! she would ruin you in twelve months.’
‘Nella must reform her ways,’ Aribert said.
‘If she is content to do so,’ Racksole went on, ‘well and good! I consent.’
‘In her name and my own, I thank you,’ said Aribert gravely.
‘And,’ the millionaire continued, ‘so that she may not have to reform too
fiercely, I shall settle on her absolutely, with reversion to your children, if
you have any, a lump sum of fifty million dollars, that is to say, ten million
pounds, in sound, selected railway stock. I reckon that is about half my
fortune. Nella and I have always shared equally.’
Aribert made no reply. The two men shook hands in silence, and then it
happened that Nella entered the room.
That night, after dinner, Racksole and his friend Felix Babylon were
walking together on the terrace of the Grand Babylon Hôtel.
Felix had begun the conversation.
‘I suppose, Racksole,’ he had said, ‘you aren’t getting tired of the Grand
Babylon?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because I am getting tired of doing without it. A thousand times since I
sold it to you I have wished I could undo the bargain. I can’t bear idleness.
Will you sell?’
‘I might,’ said Racksole, ‘I might be induced to sell.’
‘What will you take, my friend?’ asked Felix
‘What I gave,’ was the quick answer.
‘Eh!’ Felix exclaimed. ‘I sell you my hotel with Jules, with Rocco, with
Miss Spencer. You go and lose all those three inestimable servants, and then
offer me the hotel without them at the same price! It is monstrous.’ The

little man laughed heartily at his own wit. ‘Nevertheless,’ he added, ‘we
will not quarrel about the price. I accept your terms.’
And so was brought to a close the complex chain of events which had
begun when Theodore Racksole ordered a steak and a bottle of Bass at the
table d’hôte of the Grand Babylon Hôtel.

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