The Island Mystery Part 1

The Island Mystery.

by George A. Birmingham.

CHAPTER I

In 1914 there were not twenty men in England who had ever heard of the island of Salissa. Even now--I am writing in the spring of 1917--the public is very badly informed about the events which gave the island a certain importance in the history of the war. A couple of months ago I asked a well-known press-cutting agency to supply me with a complete collection of all references to Salissa which had appeared in our newspapers. I received a single short paragraph from a second-rate society weekly. It ran thus:

"Is it true that our new Minister for Balkan Problems has a curious story to tell about a certain island in the Mediterranean, and is there a lady in the case?"

The Minister referred to is, of course, Sir Bartholomew Bland-Potterton. The island must be Salissa. It is a clear proof, if proof is required, of the efficiency of our press censorship that this should be the only reference to the island in any newspaper in the course of three years. We have blundered a good deal during the war; but it cannot be said of us that we have allowed our press to supply the enemy or any one else with information likely to be of value.

Such knowledge as the public now possesses has come to it, not through newspapers, but by way of gossip. Sir Bartholomew sometimes talks, and the words of a man in his position are repeated in the smoking-rooms of clubs, round tea tables and elsewhere. Unfortunately gossip of this kind is most unreliable. The tendency is to exaggerate the picturesque parts of the story and to misinterpret motives. It is slanderous, for instance, to suggest that Sir Bartholomew was in any way attracted by the lady who bore the t.i.tle of Queen of Salissa. He never spoke to her or even saw her. His interest in the Salissa affair was that of a patriotic statesman. He told me this himself, yesterday after dinner.

It was Sir Bartholomew who drew my attention to the exhaustive monograph on the Island of Salissa written by Professor Homer Geldes, of Pearmount University, Pa., U.S.A. The book was published ten years ago, but has never been widely read. I am indebted to the professor for the following information.

Salissa is derived by Professor Geldes from a Greek word Psalis, which means an arched viaduct. It is a doubtful piece of etymology, but if it were reliable the name seems appropriate enough. The island, according to the maps published in the book, appears to be a kind of roof supported by the walls of caverns. It is possible that the professor has exaggerated this peculiarity. He was naturally anxious to make good his derivation of the name. But there are certainly many caves under the fields and vineyards of Salissa. There is one excellent natural harbour, a bay, about a mile wide, in the south coast of the island. It is protected from heavy seas by a reef of rock, a natural breakwater, which stretches across and almost blocks the entrance of the bay.

In the chapter on Ethnography I find that the people are of a mixed race. A Salissan, I gather, might boast with equal truth of being a Greek, a Turk, a Slav, or an Italian. His skull is dolichocephalic.

His facial angle--but it is better for any one interested in these points to read Professor Geldes' book for himself. No regular census has ever been made on the island; but in 1907 there were forty-three inhabitants. The number has probably increased since then.

The princ.i.p.al industries are set down, rather grandiloquently, as agriculture and fishing. A small quant.i.ty of poor wine is made by the inhabitants for their own use. The religion of these islanders, like their race, is mixed. It seems to consist of some vague pagan beliefs and the observance of a few Christian ceremonies. The people are not in any way bigoted. Their priesthood--if it can be called a priesthood--is patriarchal. There are no taxes, no police, no courts of justice, no regular laws, indeed no government, though the island is, or was, part of the Kingdom of Megalia.

My friend Gorman, who spent some time there, says that Salissa was a delightful place to live on until the Great Powers discovered its existence. But I do not quote Gorman as a reliable authority on a question of this kind. He is an Irishman, Member of Parliament for Upper Offaly, and therefore naturally at home on an island with no government. There are people who prefer to live under settled conditions, who like paying taxes, who appreciate policemen. It is not likely that they would have been happy on Salissa three years ago.

They would certainly not like to live there now.

It is scarcely necessary to add--any one who possesses an atlas can find this out for himself--that Salissa lies 47 miles (nautical) south-east of the nearest point of the Megalian coast, and thus occupies a position of supreme strategic importance. Sir Bartholomew kindly allows me to quote him on this subject. I took down the words he used and read them over to him afterwards.

"The Power," he said, "which controls the Near East controls the world. The Power which dominates the Cyrenian Sea holds the Near East in its grasp. The Island of Salissa is the keystone of the Cyrenian Sea. The German dream of world power depends, at the last a.n.a.lysis, on the use of the Island of Salissa as a submarine base."

This reads like a quotation from a political speech. It is nothing of the sort. Sir Bartholomew always talks in that way. He made this statement to me yesterday evening after dinner, when I told him that I had undertaken to write the story of recent events in the island. The p.r.o.nouncement, coming from a man like Sir Bartholomew, admittedly the greatest living authority on all Near Eastern questions, justifies the writing of this book.

Whether I am the man to attempt the work is another question. Gorman, Michael Gorman, M.P., would no doubt do it better. Though he has no financial interests in the island, he was mixed up in its affairs and knows a great deal about them. But Gorman will not do it. He says, perhaps truly, that there is no money in histories of recent events.

William Peter Donovan paid heavily for his knowledge of Salissa and is certainly ent.i.tled to such credit as may be won by writing a history of the recent troubles. But Donovan has devoted his later years to the cult of indolence, and he suffers from disordered action of the heart.

Miss Daisy Donovan--I prefer to use her original name--might have given us a picturesque account of the events in which she played the leading part. But she is now very fully occupied with more personal affairs. Lieutenant-Commander Phillips, R.N.R., is barred by professional regulations from writing the story, and in any case he had no direct knowledge of the beginning of it. King Konrad Karl II of Megalia knows most of the facts, but it is doubtful whether the British public would tolerate a book from the pen of a man who is legally an alien enemy.

I have, at all events, leisure to devote to the work, and I have heard the story from the lips of those chiefly concerned. They have allowed me to question them on various points, and placed all, or almost all, they knew at my disposal.

CHAPTER II

Konrad Karl II began to reign over Megalia in 1908. He obtained the throne through the good offices of his uncle, who wanted to get rid of him. Konrad Karl, at that time prince, was the hero of several first-rate scandals, and had the reputation of being the most irrepressible blackguard of royal blood in all Europe. He was a perpetual source of trouble in the Imperial Court. Gorman says that the Emperor pushed him on to the vacant throne in the hopes that the Megalians would a.s.sa.s.sinate him. They generally did a.s.sa.s.sinate their kings, and would no doubt have cut the throat of Konrad Karl II if he had not left the country hurriedly after reigning two years.

As king in exile Konrad Karl made a tour of the central European courts, staying as long as he could in each. He was never allowed to stay very long because of Madame Corinne Ypsilante. This lady had shared with him the palace, but not the throne, of Megalia. She accompanied him in his flight and subsequent wanderings. In these democratic days Grand Dukes, Kings, and even Emperors, must have some regard for appearances if they wish to keep their positions. It is painfully necessary to avoid open and flagrant scandal. Madame Corinne was a lady who showed wherever she was. It was impossible to conceal her. Konrad Karl did not even try.

Some time in 1912 or 1913 he arrived, still accompanied by Madame, in London. His reputation, and hers, had preceded him. English society did not receive him warmly. He occupied a suite of rooms at Beaufort's, the expensive and luxurious hotel which is the London home of foreign royalties and American millionaires. Kings, I suppose, can hold out longer than ordinary men without paying their bills. Konrad Karl was in low water financially. His private fortune was small.

Madame Corinne had no money of her own, though she had jewels. Perhaps Mr. Beaufort--if the proprietor of the hotel is indeed a Mr.

Beaufort--makes enough money out of the millionaires to enable him to entertain impecunious kings.

My friend Gorman made the acquaintance of Konrad Karl early in 1913.

Gorman is a man who lives comfortably, very much more comfortably than he could if he had no resources except the beggarly 400 a year which his country pays him as a reward for his popularity with the people of Upper Offaly. He makes money in various ways. His journalistic work brings him in a few hundreds a year. Enterprises of a commercial or financial kind add very considerably to his income. In 1913 he was interested in the Near Eastern Winegrowers' a.s.sociation, a limited liability company which aimed at making money by persuading the British public to drink Greek wine. He heard of Konrad Karl, and at once invited that monarch to become one of the directors of the company. Konrad Karl was not a Greek, and his country did not produce wine which any one except a Megalian could drink. His value to Gorman lay in the fact that there was not another limited liability company in all England which had a King on its Board of Directors.

One of the least objectionable of the wines which Gorman's company sold was put on the market as Vino Regalis. The advertis.e.m.e.nts hinted without actually stating that the King had succeeded in carrying off a thousand dozen bottles of this wine out of the royal cellars when he fled from his subjects in Megalia. The bottles in which Vino Regalis was sold had yards of gold foil wrapped round their necks. They were in their way quite as splendid and obtrusive as Madame Corinne was in hers. I always think that Gorman must have had the lady before his eyes when he arranged the get-up of that wine.

The company prospered for a while, until the public became aware of the quality of the wine sold. Then came a collapse. But Gorman did pretty well out of it. The King also did pretty well. He drew fees as a director, a special honorarium in recognition of the value of his t.i.tle, and his share of the profits. The profits were large, but he spent all he got as he received it. Madame Corinne is an expensive lady, and the King was just as badly off after the collapse of the company as he had been before he became a director. He consulted Gorman about his future. This was a very wise thing to do. Gorman probably knows more ways of making money than any man in London.

The consultation--the true starting point of the story of the Island of Salissa--took place in one of the King's rooms in Beaufort's.

Madame Corinne was not there. She had, I think, gone to the opera.

Gorman and the King dined well, as men do who can command the services of the chef at Beaufort's. The wine they drank was not Vino Regalis.

After dinner they sat in front of a fire. Brandy and coffee were on a small table set between their chairs. They smoked large and excellent cigars.

"My friend," said the King, "I find myself in a tight place. I am, as the English say, broke like a stone."

The King prided himself on his mastery of that esoteric English by which the members of various sets, smart, sporting and other, conceal the meaning of what they say from outsiders, especially from foreigners who have acquired their knowledge of our language by painful study of dictionaries and grammars.

"Since the wine company went on the burst," said the King, "I have not a stiver, not a red cent, not in all my pockets the price of one d.a.m.ned drink."

"If I might venture to advise you, sir," said Gorman.

"Advise? Certainly advise. But drop or, as you say in England, knock up calling me 'sir.' I am no longer a king. I resign. I abdicate. I chuck up the sponge of royalty. What the h.e.l.l, my dear Gorman, is the good of being a king when there are no shekels?"

"I shouldn't do that if I were you," said Gorman. "After all, royalty is an a.s.set. A t.i.tle like that--kings aren't at all common, you know--is worth money in the market."

The King drank a gla.s.s of brandy with an air of great dejection.

"In what market? Who will buy?"

"Well," said Gorman, "I suppose you might marry. There must be lots of wealthy girls who would like to be called queen."

The King leaned forward and smacked Gorman heartily on the knee.

"You have hit the business end of the nail," he said. "I am ready. I shall marry. Produce the lady, or, as you say in England, cough her up."

Gorman had not expected this prompt and enthusiastic approval of his suggestion. He had not a list of heiresses in his pocket.

"But," he said, "there's Madame Ypsilante."

"Corinne is reasonable," said the King. "I should not, of course, show my cold shoulder to Corinne. She would share the loot. She and I together."

Gorman knew that the King was a blackguard entirely without principle or honour; but this proposal startled him.

"I have it," said the King. "Something has happened--no, occurred to me. There is in this hotel at this moment an American, an oof-bird, a king of dollars."

"Donovan?"