The Port of Missing Men Part 2

"I still owe allegiance to the Schomburg crown, so don't imagine you are hitting me. But the swine are industrious and energetic. Who knows but that John Armitage might become famous among them--in politics, in finance! But for the deplorable accident of foreign birth he might become president of the United States. As it is, there are thousands of other offices worth getting--why not?"

"I tell you not to be a fool. You are young and--fairly clever--"

Armitage laughed at the reluctance of the count's praise.

"Thank you, with all my heart!"

"Go back where you belong and you will have no regrets. Something may happen--who can tell? Events--events--if a man will watch and wait and study events--"

"Bless me! They organize clubs in every American village for the study of events," laughed Armitage; then he changed his tone. "To be sure, the Bourbons have studied events these many years--a pretty spectacle, too."

"Carrion! Carrion!" almost screamed the old man, half-rising in his seat.

"Don't mention those scavengers to me! Bah! The very thought of them makes me sick. But"--he gulped down more of the brandy--"where and how do you live?"

"Where? I own a cattle ranch in Montana and since the Archduke's death I have lived there. He carried about fifty thousand pounds to America with him. He took care that I should get what was left when he died--and, I am almost afraid to tell you that I have actually augmented my inheritance!

Just before I left I bought a place in Virginia to be near Washington when I got tired of the ranch."

"Washington!" snorted the count. "In due course it will be the storm center of the world."

"You read the wrong American newspapers," laughed Armitage.

They were silent for a moment, in which each was busy with his own thoughts; then the count remarked, in as amiable a tone as he ever used:

"Your French is first rate. Do you speak English as well?"

"As readily as German, I think. You may recall that I had an English tutor, and maybe I did not tell you in that interview at Paris that I had spent a year at Harvard University."

"What the devil did you do that for?" growled Von Stroebel.

"From curiosity, or ambition, as you like. I was in Cambridge at the law school for a year before the Archduke died. That was three years ago. I am twenty-eight, as you may remember. I am detaining you; I have no wish to rake over the past; but I am sorry--I am very sorry we can't meet on some common ground."

"I ask you to abandon this democratic nonsense and come back and make a man of yourself. You might go far--very far; but this democracy has hold of you like a disease."

"What you ask is impossible. It is just as impossible now as it was when we discussed it in Paris last year. To sit down in Vienna and learn how to keep that leaning tower of an Empire from tumbling down like a stack of bricks--it does not appeal to me. You have spent a laborious life in defending a silly medieval tradition of government. You are using all the apparatus of the modern world to perpetuate an ideal that is as old and dead as the Rameses dynasty. Every time you use the telegraph to send orders in an emperor's name you commit an anachronism."

The count frowned and growled.

"Don't talk to me like that. It is not amusing."

"No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips without your brains--it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my imagination."

"You put it coa.r.s.ely," remarked the old man grimly. "I shall perhaps have a statue when I am gone."

"Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon the royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings."

"I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim democracy and brotherhood everywhere."

"On the other hand, I should become king myself."

"Don't be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I should hate to see you in a madhouse."

"My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready to my hand. Let me find that lost doc.u.ment, appear in Vienna and announce myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I knew both men intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I were born in the same month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We pa.s.sed commonly in America as brothers. Many of the personal effects of Karl and Augustus are in my keeping--by the Archduke's own wish. You have spent your life studying human nature, and you know as well as I do that half the world would believe my story if I said I was the Emperor's nephew. In the uneasy and unstable condition of your absurd empire I should be hailed as a diversion, and then--events, events!"

Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in an effort to find words with which to break in upon this impious declaration. When Armitage ceased speaking the old man sank back and glared at him.

"Karl did his work well. You are quite mad. You will do well to go back to America before the police discover you."

Armitage rose and his manner changed abruptly.

"I do not mean to trouble or annoy you. Please pardon me! Let us be friends, if we can be nothing more."

"It is too late. The chasm is too deep."

The old minister sighed deeply. His fingers touched the despatch box as though by habit. It represented power, majesty and the iron game of government. The young man watched him eagerly.

The heavy, tremulous hands of Count von Stroebel pa.s.sed back and forth over the box caressingly. Suddenly he bent forward and spoke with a new and gentler tone and manner.

"I have given my life, my whole life, as you have said, to one service--to uphold one idea. You have spoken of that work with contempt.

History, I believe, will reckon it justly."

"Your place is secure--no one can gainsay that," broke in Armitage.

"If you would do something for me--for me--do something for Austria, do something for my country and yours! You have wits; I dare say you have courage. I don't care what that service may be; I don't care where or how you perform it. I am not so near gone as you may think. I know well enough that they are waiting for me to die; but I am in no hurry to afford my enemies that pleasure. But stop this babble of yours about democracy. _Do something for Austria_--for the Empire that I have held here under my hand these difficult years--then take your name again--and you will find that kings can be as just and wise as mobs."

"For the Empire--something for the Empire?" murmured the young man, wondering.

Count Ferdinand von Stroebel rose.

"You will accept the commission--I am quite sure you will accept. I leave on an early train, and I shall not see you again." As he took Armitage's hand he scrutinized him once more with particular care; there was a lingering caress in his touch as he detained the young man for an instant; then he sighed heavily.

"Good night; good-by!" he said abruptly, and waved his caller toward the door.

CHAPTER II

THE CLAIBORNES, OF WASHINGTON

--the Englishman who is not an Englishman and therefore doubly incomprehensible.--_The Naulahka_.

The girl with the white-plumed hat started and flushed slightly, and her brother glanced over his shoulder toward the restaurant door to see what had attracted her attention.

"'Tis he, the unknown, d.i.c.k."

"I must say I like his persistence!" exclaimed the young fellow, turning again to the table. "In America I should call him out and punch his head, but over here--"