Affairs of State Part 14

"I mean that that story of yours was a ridiculous lie!" responded the Prince, brutally, being, indeed, greatly overwrought. "How do I know,"

he added, suddenly, "that you did not intentionally deceive me? I have only your word--what is that worth? How do I know that it was not a trick--a trick on the part of your government to involve me with England? That would be like you!" and his hands clenched and unclenched in a most threatening manner.

"I swear to Your Highness," protested Tellier, his cheeks livid, his lips quivering convulsively, "that I told only the truth! On my heart, I swear it--on my soul--on the grave of my mother. Otherwise, pardieu, would I have been so imprudent as to remain here awaiting the return of Your Highness?"

The Prince's face relaxed a little as he looked at him.

"No," he agreed, grimly, after a moment. "I don't believe you would.

Yes, you are a fool and not a knave. For I have just seen Lord Vernon with my own eyes--he is truly ill--sneezing as though his head would burst, gasping for breath, his eyes running water, cursing even the friends who nurse him! It was some one else who kicked my dog away. You have been deceived."

Tellier was walking up and down the room, tugging at his imperial, at his hair, biting his nails, shaking his clenched hands at the ceiling in a very ecstasy of bewilderment.

"Impossible!" he murmured, hoa.r.s.ely. "Impossible!"

"How impossible!" cried the Prince, violently. "Do you presume to contradict me? Do you dare to dispute my word when I tell you that I myself have seen Lord Vernon; when I describe his condition to you? He was most courteous, though he could not speak above a whisper--he treated me more kindly than I deserved, when one considers the wording of that note I sent to him, for which I was glad to apologise! One could see he was in no condition to give me audience--to discuss business of any kind! He could scarcely sit erect!"

"Oh, there is some knavery!" cried Tellier, his face purple. "I know it!

I scent it!"

"You are, then, infallible, I suppose!" retorted the Prince. "His physician a.s.sured me that in a week Lord Vernon would be much better--nearly well; he suggested that for a week I do not press my business."

"But you did not agree!" screamed Tellier. "Your Highness did not agree!"

"Most certainly I agreed. Not to agree would have been to insult them yet a second time!"

"A week!" groaned Tellier, throwing up his hands, with a gesture of despair. "Then all is lost!"

"How lost?" demanded Markeld, red with anger. "In what way lost? Have a care of what you say!"

Tellier controlled himself by a mighty effort and managed to speak with some approach to calmness.

"The German Emperor will not waste a week, Your Highness. That is not his way, as you very well know. He will be at work every hour--every minute!"

"What can he accomplish, if the British foreign office will do nothing?

Will he take the affair into his own hands? He will not dare!"

"He might dare, Your Highness; he has dared things more perilous than that. But how do we know the British foreign office will do nothing?"

"I tell you," repeated the Prince, hotly, "that Lord Vernon is a gentleman--something you do not seem to understand; that he is ill-- something you seem to doubt!"

"In diplomacy, Your Highness, even a gentleman may sometimes lie, or, at least, disguise the truth. Perhaps even before this, he has hinted to the Emperor that he will not interfere, if he acts promptly--perhaps this illness is merely a ruse to avoid a situation the most awkward."

It was the Prince's turn to stride up and down, to pluck at his moustache, to go red and white.

"If I thought so!" he murmured hoa.r.s.ely. "If I thought so!"

"There is some underhand work in progress," cried Tellier, growing more and more excited; "some trap, some piece of trickery--I know not what--but I am certain--I will find out!"

"If I thought so!" said the Prince again, and his face was not pleasant to look upon.

"For I repeat to Your Highness that I could not have been mistaken. It is impossible that I should have been mistaken. I saw Lord Vernon leap from his chair; I was as near it as I am to you at this moment; I saw him return to it and hide himself behind his paper, when he saw you approaching; I waited, and saw his lackeys come after him and lift him to the invalid chair. If I had not been certain before, I was certain then! I followed him back to the hotel. Yes!" he added, with sudden excitement, "and there was another circ.u.mstance which will confirm me!"

"Go on!" commanded Markeld, yielding somewhat before this torrent of proof.

"At the door he met the young ladies whom he had rescued--the Americans; they recognised him--I could see their look of astonishment at perceiving him in the chair of an invalid, buried in rugs. They stared after him--the chair stopped--he wrote a few words on a piece of paper and sent it back to them. They read it with eyes even more astonished."

"Did you, by any chance, read it also?" inquired the Prince, with a deceptive calmness.

"No, Your Highness," Tellier replied, simply, quite unconscious of his danger. "I saw no way of doing that, unfortunately. I thought of s.n.a.t.c.hing it away, but that would have created a turmoil, which is always to be avoided if possible. But Your Highness might easily gain possession of the note--"

The Prince stopped him with a fierce gesture of repugnance.

"Do you know what it is that you have the effrontery to propose to me?"

he demanded.

The Frenchman paused in mid-sentence and swallowed with difficulty, his face very red.

"I am certain," he said, after a moment, "that those young ladies know it was Lord Vernon who rescued them. They would no doubt confirm this, if Your Highness would inquire--"

The Prince strode to the door and flung it open.

"Do not come back till you can speak without insulting me," he said, sternly.

"One moment, Your Highness!" cried Tellier. "But a moment! I have another proof. Oh, you are wrong not to believe me! You are wrong to yield to your anger!"

"The proof!" broke in the Prince, sharply, realising, perhaps, the justice of the reproach. "The proof! What is it? Speak quickly!"

"It is this, Your Highness," answered the detective, striving desperately to steady his voice, to speak intelligibly. "But an hour ago, the secretary of Lord Vernon was in conference with the father of those young ladies. He approached him in the smoking-room; he introduced himself; he sat down; he began a conversation. I should have overheard everything, but that, unfortunately, he was more clever than I thought.

He suspected me. They went together to Monsieur Rushford's apartment--I followed, I listened at the keyhole; but they went on into an inner room, and the outer door was locked, so I could not--"

The Prince, who had listened to all this with blazing eyes, suddenly raised his arm with a furious gesture.

"Gluck!" he shouted.

That faithful servitor appeared on the instant, his face alight with antic.i.p.ation.

"But if there should be a plot!" protested Tellier, hesitating, even yet, on the threshold.

"If there is a plot," said the Prince, sternly, "someone shall suffer for it, depend upon that! But against gentlemen, the proof must be conclusive. Gluck, show him out," and he shut the door upon the unhappy spy.

"It would have been well," observed Gluck, calmly, coming back after a moment, "to have thrown him out in the first place."

"I agree with you," said his master. "You may do so whenever you find him here again, my friend," and for an instant Gluck almost smiled.

"Will Your Highness dine in your apartment tonight?" he asked.

The Prince hesitated; then his face relaxed as at some pleasant thought.

"No, Gluck," he said, "I will dine downstairs. Get my bath ready."