The Secrets Of Potsdam Part 18

Suddenly, not far away, a horn was blown, followed by loud shouts.

Quickly we approached the spot, and Eckardt and myself, as we came up, looked upon a strange scene. Close to the trunk of a great beech tree lay the form of the Crown-Prince, hatless, outstretched upon his face.

Instantly I bent, tore open his shooting jacket, and to my great relief found that his heart was still beating. He was, however, quite unconscious, though there seemed no sign of a struggle. As he had left his hat and gun in the house, it seemed that he had gone forth only for a moment. And yet we were quite a mile from the forester's house!

The Countess had thrown herself upon her knees and stroked his brow tenderly when I announced that he was still living. By her actions I saw that she was filled by some bitter self-reproach.

With the lanterns shining around him--surely a weird and remarkable scene which would, if described by the journalists, have caused a great sensation in Europe--the Crown-Prince was brought slowly back to consciousness, until at last he sat up, dazed and wondering.

His first words to me were:

"That fellow! Where is he? That--that gla.s.s globe!"

Gla.s.s globe! Surely His Highness's mind was wandering.

An hour later he was comfortably in bed in the great old-world room in the castle, attended by a local doctor--upon whom I set the seal of official silence--and before dawn he had completely recovered.

Yet, even to me, he declared that he retained absolutely no knowledge of what had occurred.

"I went out quickly, and I--well, I don't know what happened," he told me soon after dawn, as he lay in bed. Strangely enough, he made no mention of the man, Karl Krahl.

Later on he summoned the Countess von Kienitz, and for twenty minutes or so he had an animated discussion with her. Being outside the room, however, I was unable to hear distinctly.

Well, I succeeded, by bribes and threats, in hushing up the whole affair and keeping it out of the papers, while by those who knew of the incident it was soon forgotten.

I suppose it must have been fully three months later when one evening, having taken some doc.u.ments over to the Emperor for signature at the Berlin Schloss, I returned to the Prince's private room in the Palace, when, to my great surprise, I found the man Karl Krahl seated there. He looked very pale and worn, quite unlike the rather athletic figure he presented at the forester's house.

"If you still refuse to tell me the truth, then I shall take my own measures to find out--severe measures! So I give you full warning," the Crown-Prince was declaring angrily, as I entered so unexpectedly.

I did not withdraw, pretending not to notice the presence of a visitor, therefore His Highness himself beckoned the young man, who followed him down the corridor to another room.

The whole affair was most puzzling. What had happened on that afternoon in the Harz Mountains I could not at all imagine. By what means had His Highness been rendered unconscious, and what part could the little old Countess have played in the curious affair?

In about half an hour the Crown-Prince returned in a palpably bad humour, and, flinging himself into his chair, wrote a long letter, which he addressed to Countess von Kienitz. This he sealed carefully, and ordered me to take it at once to the Stulerstra.s.se and deliver it to her personally.

"The Countess left for Stockholm this morning," I was informed by the bearded manservant. "She left by the eight o'clock train, and has already left Sa.s.snitz by now."

"When do you expect her to return?"

The man did not know.

On going back to His Highness and telling him of the Countess's departure, he bit his lip and then smiled grimly.

"That infernal old woman has left Germany, and will never again put her foot upon our soil, Heltzendorff," he said. "You may open that letter.

It will explain something which I know must have mystified you."

I did so. And as I read what he had written I held my breath. Truly, it did explain much.

Imposing the strictest silence upon me, the Crown-Prince then revealed how utterly he and the Crown-Princess had been misled, and how very narrowly he had escaped being the victim of a cunning plot to effect his death.

The little old Countess von Kienitz had, it seemed, sworn to avenge the degradation and dismissal of her son, who had been in the famous Death's Head Hussars. She had secretly traced the Crown-Prince as author of a subtle conspiracy against him, the underlying motive being jealousy.

With that end in view she had slowly wormed her way into His Highness's confidence, and introduced to him Karl Krahl, a neurotic young Saxon who lived in London, and who pretended he had unearthed a plot against the Kaiser himself.

"It was to tell me the truth concerning the conspiracy that Krahl came to me in secret at Ballenstedt. He remained with me for half an hour, when, to my great surprise, we were joined by the Countess. The story they told me of the plot against the Emperor was a very alarming one, and I intended to return at once to Berlin. The Countess had left to walk back to the schloss, when presently we heard a woman's scream--her voice--and we both went forth to discover what was in progress. As I ran along a little distance behind Krahl, suddenly what seemed like a thin gla.s.s globe struck me in the chest and burst before my face. It had been thrown by an unknown hand, and, on breaking, must have emitted some poisonous gas which was intended to kill me, but which happily failed.

Until yesterday the whole affair was a complete mystery, but Krahl has now confessed that the Countess conceived the plot, and that the hand that had thrown the gla.s.s bomb was that of her son, who had concealed himself in the bushes for that purpose."

Though, of course, I hastened to congratulate His Highness upon his fortunate escape, yet I now often wonder whether, if the plot had succeeded, the present world-conflict would ever have occurred.

SECRET NUMBER SEVEN

THE BRITISH GIRL WHO BAULKED THE KAISER

"How completely we have put to sleep these very dear cousins of ours, the British!" His Imperial Highness the Crown-Prince made this remark to me as he sat in the corner of a first-cla.s.s compartment of an express that had ten minutes before left Paddington Station for the West of England--that much-advertised train known as the Cornish-Riviera Express.

The Crown-Prince, though not generally known, frequently visited England and Scotland incognito, usually travelling as Count von Grunau, and we were upon one of these flying visits on that bright summer's morning as the express tore through your delightful English scenery of the Thames Valley, with the first stopping-place at Plymouth, our destination.

The real reason for the visit of my young hotheaded Imperial Master was concealed from me.

Four days before he had dashed into my room at the Marmor Palace at Potsdam greatly excited. He had been with the Emperor in Berlin all the morning, and had motored back with all speed. Something had occurred, but what it was I failed to discern. He carried some papers in the pocket of his military tunic. From their colour I saw that they were secret reports--those doc.u.ments prepared solely for the eyes of the Kaiser and those of his precious son.

He took a big linen-lined envelope and, placing the papers in it, carefully sealed it with wax.

"We are going to London, Heltzendorff. Put that in your dispatch-box. I may want it when we are in England."

"To London--when?" I asked, much surprised at the suddenness of our journey, because I knew that we were due at Weimar in two days' time.

"We leave at six o'clock this evening," was the Crown-Prince's reply.

"Koehler has ordered the saloon to be attached to the Hook of Holland train. Hardt has already left Berlin to engage rooms for us at the 'Ritz,' in London."

"And the suite?" I asked, for it was one of my duties to arrange who travelled with His Imperial Highness.

"Oh! we'll leave Eckardt at home," he said, for he always hated the surveillance of the Commissioner of Secret Police. "We shall only want Schuler, my valet, and Knof."

We never travelled anywhere without Knof, the chauffeur, who was an impudent, arrogant young man, intensely disliked by everyone.

And so it was that the four of us duly landed at Harwich and travelled to London, our ident.i.ty unknown to the jostling crowd of Cook's tourists returning from their annual holiday on the Continent.

At the "Ritz," too, though we took our meals in the restaurant, that great square white room overlooking the Park, "Willie" was not recognized, because all photographs of him show him in elegant uniform.

In a tweed suit, or in evening clothes, he presents an unhealthy, weedy and somewhat insignificant figure, save for those slant animal eyes of his which are always so striking in his every mood.

His Imperial Highness had been on the previous day to Carlton House Terrace to a luncheon given by the Amba.s.sador's wife, but to which n.o.body was invited but the Emba.s.sy staff.

And that afternoon in the great dining-room, in full view of St. James's Park and Whitehall, the toast of "The Day" was drunk enthusiastically--the day of Great Britain's intended downfall.

That same evening an Imperial courier arrived from Berlin and called at the "Ritz," where, on being shown into the Crown-Prince's sitting-room, he handed His Highness a sealed letter from his wife.