A Dash .. .. .. For a Throne Part 51

"I will send you to a police cell to learn manners," he cried.

"As you please. I would rather sit in a jail than stand to be hectored by you," and I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.

Like my voice, the smile appeared to set his wits gleaning for the facts that would piece together the puzzle my voice and gesture had set him.

For a moment he seemed as if he would carry out his threat; but I judged he would be much more eager to learn what I knew of the conspiracy than to stickle over the question whether I sat or stood in his presence. And so it proved.

"You still dare to carry things with a high hand, even with me?"

"On the contrary, I am here for the express purpose of discussing the whole of this affair with you in its new light. But I tell you at the outset that if you think to frighten me with threats or to treat me as what you call a prisoner, with the meaning your accent gives to the term, you will get nothing from the interview."

"We shall see," he said grimly; but he said no more about my standing up.

A long pause followed, in which I saw him look several times at me with obvious doubt and interest; and I knew by these glances that he was trying hard to place me in his memory and failing.

"Now, sir," he said at length in a quick, sharp tone. "Who are you?"

"At present I am generally known as the Prince von Gramberg--but that is not my real name."

"A needless addition. What is your real name? Who were you before you were known as Heinrich Fischer, the actor at Frankfort? I warn you to speak freely. Your only hope lies in that."

"For the present I prefer not to tell you," I answered very quietly. "It does not concern this matter--in its present stage, that is."

"You refuse to tell me?"

"If you put it so, I refuse to tell you."

"What was your object in usurping the character of the Prince von Gramberg?"

"I was forced by a series of blunders on the part of others to take the position; it was done by the desire of the real heir of the Prince, Hans von Fromberg, who is now known as Henri Frombe; and I kept up the part in order to protect the Countess Minna from a foul conspiracy against her, in which a scoundrel who is now dead was one of the chief agents."

And then I told him at considerable length the exact circ.u.mstances under which I had first been taken to Gramberg by von Krugen and Steinitz.

"You can easily verify what I say," I added.

"You mean by those two men who have since been your tools in the affair?" he sneered.

"I mean by finding the real von Fromberg and questioning him."

Despite his sneer I could see that the story impressed him; and he put a number of questions to test its consistency and truth.

"You don't attempt to deny, then, that you were willing to continue the impersonation of the late Prince and to accept the inheritance?"

"There were no gains in what you call the inheritance. The only inheritance was the castle of Gramberg itself, mortgaged for a great deal more than its value. Scarcely a valuable prize for such an adventurer as men appear to have described me to you. I have my own private fortune--a large one."

"There was something else at the castle besides a mortgage," he sneered.

"Indeed there was," I replied quickly, purposely misunderstanding him.

"There was a mess of intrigue and treachery against the Countess Minna."

"And you were the cavalier to save her from it--and for yourself."

The gibe made my blood boil.

"That is the sneer of a coward," I cried hotly. "And if that is to be the tone in which you dare to address me, I decline to say another word or to remain in your presence. I am prepared to tell you the whole truth, and to lay bare every word, motive, and act of mine throughout; but I will not allow you or any man to insult me in that coa.r.s.e and brutal fashion."

He laughed coldly.

"You use bold terms," he said.

"I will back them with acts. Unless you pledge yourself to abstain from further insults, you can send me to jail or to h.e.l.l itself before I'll remain here."

"I'm not accustomed to make compacts with prisoners."

"Nor I to hold converse with bullies who forget themselves!" I cried, all my old hate of the man fired by his manner and words.

I got up and turned to the door.

"Come back at once, sir," he thundered. "If you dare to attempt to leave this room you go straight to a prison."

"Rather there than here." I flung the words at him over my shoulder, and went on toward the door.

He struck the bell on his table sharply, and the door opened as I neared it to admit two men in uniform.

"Will you return here?" he called to me.

"No, not without a pledge that you cease to insult me."

"Detain that man," he cried to the others, who came and stood on either side of me, and laid their hands on my shoulders.

I stood with my back to the table.

"Face him round," he ordered, his voice thick with anger.

The men forced me to turn round.

"Now, sir, I give you a last chance," he cried, pointing his finger at me and shaking it menacingly.

"I don't accept it," I answered recklessly. "I've had enough of this Inquisition process. I will have a public trial. I am not ashamed of what I have done; but I should be ashamed of myself if I stayed here to be bullied and browbeaten and insulted and sneered at by you. Do what you like."

My recklessness was a factor on which he had not calculated, and I could tell by his indecision how it perplexed him. Without my version of the plot he could not hope to get a full grasp of the facts, and I reckoned that in an affair of such real State importance he would be altogether unwilling to have any public trial.

"Leave us a moment," he said to the men; and when they had gone he asked, "Do you mean to persist in this obstinacy?"

"'Obstinacy!' Is that what you call my refusal to be a stalking-horse for your ill-conditioned flouts and gibes, after you have had me dragged three hundred or four hundred miles, and hauled in here that you may treat me like a dog or a thief, without even telling me the charge preferred against me? If that be obstinacy, then indeed I am obstinate, and shall remain so. But I will do more than that. I will appeal to the Emperor himself, and tell him the story to which you have refused a courteous ear."

"The Emperor does not concern himself with the private offences of every nameless adventurer in his empire."

"I am no nameless adventurer. I bear a name----"

I stopped, checked by the cold, steely glance of his eye.