The Secrets Of Potsdam Part 20

To those spots we motored on the following day. His Imperial Highness, at the instigation of the Emperor, actually made a tour of inspection of those cunningly-concealed points of vantage which the Imperial General Staff had, with their marvellous forethought and bold enterprise, already prepared right beneath the very nose of the sleeping British lion.

From the Crown-Prince's jaunty manner and good spirits I felt a.s.sured that by the subtle persuasive powers he possessed towards women--nearly all of whom admired his corseted figure and his gay nonchalance--he had brought the mysterious Miss King into line with his own cunningly-conceived plans--whatever they might be.

We lunched at the Burford Bridge Hotel, that pretty old-fashioned house beneath Box Hill, not far from Dorking.

After our meal in the long public room, newly built as an annexe, we strolled into the grounds for a smoke.

"Well, Heltzendorff," he said presently, as we strolled together along the gravelled walks, "we will return to the Continent to-morrow. Our visit has not been altogether abortive. We will remain a few days in Ostend, before we return to Potsdam."

Next afternoon we had taken up our quarters at a small but very select hotel on the Digue at Ostend, a place called the "Beau Sejour." It was patronized by old-fashioned folk, and "Herr Richter" was well known there. There may have been some who suspected that Richter was not the visitor's real name, but they were few, and it always surprised me how well the Crown-Prince succeeded in preserving his incognito--though, of course, the authorities knew of the Imperial visit.

Whenever "Willie" went to Ostend his conduct became anything but that of the exemplary husband. Ostend in the season was a.s.suredly a gay place, and the Crown-Prince had a small and select coterie of friends there who drank, gambled and enjoyed themselves even more than they did at Nice in winter.

But his mind was always obsessed by the coming war. Indeed, on that very evening of our arrival, as we strolled along the gaily-illuminated Digue towards the big, bright Kursaal, he turned to me suddenly and said:

"When the hour comes, and Prussia in her greatness strikes them, this place will soon become German territory. I shall make that building yonder my headquarters," and he jerked his thumb in the direction of the summer palace of the King of the Belgians.

The following day, about three o'clock, while the Crown-Prince was carelessly going through some letters brought by courier from Potsdam, a waiter came to me with a message that a Miss King desired to see Mr.

Richter.

In surprise I received her, welcoming her to Ostend. From the neat dress of the pretty English girl I concluded that she had just crossed from Dover, and she seemed most anxious to see His Highness. I noted, too, that she still wore the beautiful golden b.u.t.terfly.

When I entered his room to announce her his slant brows knit, and his thin lips compressed.

"H'm! More trouble for us, Heltzendorff, I suppose!" he whispered beneath his breath. "Very well, show her in."

The fair visitor was in the room for a long time--indeed, for over an hour. Their voices were raised, and now and then, curiously enough, I received the impression that, whatever might have been the argument, the pretty girl had gained her own point, for when she came out she smiled at me in triumph, and walked straight forth and down the stairs.

The Crown-Prince threw himself into a big arm-chair in undisguised dissatisfaction. Towards me he never wore a mask, though, like his father, he invariably did so in the presence of strangers.

"Those accursed women!" he cried. "Ah! Heltzendorff, when a woman is in love she will defy even Satan himself! And yet they are fools, these women, for they are in ignorance of the irresistible power of our Imperial house. The enemies of the Hohenzollerns are as a cloud of gnats on a summer's night. The dew comes, and they are no more. It is a pity,"

he added, with a sigh of regret. "But those who are either conscientious or defiant must suffer. Has not one of our greatest German philosophers written: 'It is no use breathing against the wind'?"

"True," I said. Then, hoping to learn something further, I added: "Surely it is a nuisance to be followed and worried by that little English girl!"

"Worried! Yes. You are quite right, my dear Heltzendorff," he said. "But I do not mind worry, if it is in the interests of Prussia, and of our House of Hohenzollern. I admit the girl, though distinctly pretty, is a most irritating person. She does not appeal to me, but I am compelled to humour her, because I have a certain object in view."

I could not go further, or I might have betrayed the knowledge I had gained by eavesdropping.

"I was surprised that she should turn up here, in Ostend," I said.

"I had written to her. I expected her."

"She does not know your real rank or station?"

"No. To her I am merely Herr Emil Richter, whom she first met away in the country. She was a tourist, and I was Captain Emil Richter, of the Prussian Guards. We met while you were away on holiday at Vienna."

I was anxious to learn something about Miss King's brother, but "Willie"

was generally discreet, and at that moment unusually so. One fact was plain, however, that some secret report presented to the Emperor had been shown to her. Why? I wondered if His Highness had been successful in coercing her into acting as he desired.

Certainly the girl's att.i.tude as she had left the hotel went to show that, in the contest, she had won by her woman's keen wit and foresight.

I recollected, too, that she was British.

A fortnight afterwards we were back again at Potsdam.

About three months pa.s.sed. The Crown-Prince had accompanied the Emperor to shoot on the Glatzer Gebirge, that wild mountainous district beyond Breslau. For a week we had been staying at a great, high-up, prison-like schloss, the ancestral home of Prince Ludwig Lichtenau, in the Wolfelsgrund.

The Emperor and his suite had left, and our host had been suddenly called to Berlin by telegram, his daughter having been taken ill.

Therefore, the Crown-Prince and we of the suite had remained for some further sport.

On the day after the Emperor's departure I spent the afternoon in a small panelled room which overlooked a deep mountain gorge, and which had been given up to me for work. I was busy with correspondence when the courier from Potsdam entered and gave me the battered leather pouch containing the Crown-Prince's letters. Having unlocked it with my key, I found among the correspondence a small square packet addressed to His Imperial Highness, and marked "Private."

Now, fearing bombs or attempts by other means upon his son's precious life, the Emperor had commanded me always to open packets addressed to him. This one, however, being marked "Private," and, moreover, the inscription being in a feminine hand, I decided to await His Highness's return.

When at last he came in, wet and very muddy after a long day's sport, I showed him the packet. With a careless air he said:

"Oh, open it, Heltzendorff. Open all packets, whether marked private or not."

I obeyed, and to my surprise found within the paper a small leather-covered jewel-case, in which, reposing upon a bed of dark blue velvet, was the beautiful ornament which I had admired at the throat of the fair-haired British girl--the golden b.u.t.terfly.

I handed it to His Highness just as he was taking a cigarette from the box on a side table.

The sight of it electrified him! He held his breath, standing for a few seconds staring wildly at it as though he were gazing upon some hideous spectre, sight of which had frozen his senses.

He stood rigid, his thin countenance as white as paper.

"When did that arrive?" he managed to ask, though in a hoa.r.s.e voice, which showed how completely sight of it had upset him.

"This afternoon. It was in the courier's pouch from Potsdam."

He had grasped the back of a chair as though to steady himself, and for a few seconds stood there, with his left hand clapped over his eyes, endeavouring to collect his thoughts.

He seemed highly nervous, and at the same time extremely puzzled.

Receipt of that unique and beautiful brooch was, I saw, some sign, but of its real significance I remained in entire ignorance.

That it had a serious meaning I quickly realized, for within half an hour the Crown-Prince and myself were in the train on our two-hundred-mile journey back to Berlin.

On arrival His Imperial Highness drove straight to the Berlin Schloss, and there had a long interview with the Emperor. At last I was called into the familiar pale-green room, the Kaiser's private cabinet, and at once saw that something untoward had occurred.

The Emperor's face was dark and thoughtful. Yet another of the black plots of the Hohenzollerns was in process of being carried out! Of that I felt only too confident. The Crown-Prince, in his badly-creased uniform, betraying a long journey--so unlike his usual spick-and-span appearance--stood nervously by as the Kaiser threw himself into his writing-chair with a deep grunt and distinctly evil grace.

"I suppose it must be done," he growled viciously to his son. "Did I not foresee that the girl would const.i.tute a serious menace? When she was in Germany she might easily have been arrested upon some charge and her mouth closed. Bah! our political police service grows worse and worse.

We will have it entirely reorganized. The Director, Laubach, is far too sentimental, far too chicken-hearted."

As he spoke he took up his pen and commenced to write rapidly, drawing a deep breath as his quill scratched upon the paper.

"You realize," he exclaimed angrily to his son, taking no notice of my presence there, because I was part and parcel of the great machinery of the Court, "you realize what this order means?" he added, as he appended his signature. "It is a blow struck against our cause--struck by a mere slip of a girl. Think, if the truth came out! Why, all our propaganda in the United States and Britain would be nullified in a single day, and the 'good relations' we are now extending on every hand throughout the world in order to mislead our enemies would be exposed in all their true meaning. We cannot afford that. It would be far cheaper to pay twenty million marks--the annual cost of the whole propaganda in America--than to allow the truth to be known."

Suddenly the Crown-Prince's face brightened, as though he had had some sudden inspiration.