The Grand Babylon Hôtel
if Ostend was distant scarcely a cable’s length. The white dome of the
great Kursaal glittered in the pale turquoise sky, and the smoke of
steamers in the harbour could be plainly distinguished. On the offing
was a crowd of brown-sailed fishing luggers returning with the night’s
catch. The many-hued bathing-vans could be counted on the distant beach.
Everything seemed perfectly normal. It was difficult for either Nella or
her companion to realize that anything extraordinary had happened within
the last hour. Yet there was the yacht, not a mile off, to prove to them
that something very extraordinary had, in fact, happened. The yacht was
no vision, nor was that sinister watching figure at its stern a vision,
either.
‘I suppose Jules was too surprised and too feeble to inquire how I came
to be on board his yacht,’ said the Prince, taking the oars.
‘Oh! How did you?’ asked Nella, her face lighting up. ‘Really, I had
almost forgotten that part of the affair.’
‘I must begin at the beginning and it will take some time,’ answered the
Prince. ‘Had we not better postpone the recital till we get ashore?’
‘I will row and you shall talk,’ said Nella. ‘I want to know now.’
He smiled happily at her, but gently declined to yield up the oars.
‘Is it not sufficient that I am here?’ he said.
‘It is sufficient, yes,’ she replied, ‘but I want to know.’
With a long, easy stroke he was pulling the dinghy shorewards. She sat
in the stern-sheets.
‘There is no rudder,’ he remarked, ‘so you must direct me. Keep the
boat’s head on the lighthouse. The tide seems to be running in strongly;
that will help us. The people on shore will think that we have only been
for a little early morning excursion.’
‘Will you kindly tell me how it came about that you were able to save my
life, Prince?’ she said.
‘Save your life, Miss Racksole? I didn’t save your life; I merely
knocked a man down.’
‘You saved my life,’ she repeated. ‘That villain would have stopped at
nothing. I saw it in his eye.’
‘Then you were a brave woman, for you showed no fear of death.’ His
admiring gaze rested full on her. For a moment the oars ceased to move.
She gave a gesture of impatience.
‘It happened that I saw you last night in your carriage,’ he said. ‘The
fact is, I had not had the audacity to go to Berlin with my story. I
stopped in Ostend to see whether I could do a little detective work on
my own account.
It was a piece of good luck that I saw you. I followed the carriage as
quickly as I could, and I just caught a glimpse of you as you entered
that awful house. I knew that Jules had something to do with that house.
I guessed what you were doing. I was afraid for you. Fortunately I had
surveyed the house pretty thoroughly. There is an entrance to it at the
back, from a narrow lane. I made my way there. I got into the yard at
the back, and I stood under the window of the room where you had the
interview with Miss Spencer. I heard everything that was said. It was a
courageous enterprise on your part to follow Miss Spencer from the Grand
Babylon to Ostend. Well, I dared not force an entrance, lest I might
precipitate matters too suddenly, and involve both of us in a
difficulty. I merely kept watch. Ah, Miss Racksole! you were magnificent
with Miss Spencer; as I say, I could hear every word, for the window was
slightly open. I felt that you needed no assistance from me. And then
she cheated you with a trick, and the revolver came flying through the
window. I picked it up, I thought it would probably be useful. There was
a silence. I did not guess at first that you had fainted. I thought that
you had escaped. When I found out the truth it was too late for me to
intervene. There were two men, both desperate, besides Miss Spencer--’
‘Who was the other man?’ asked Nella.
‘I do not know. It was dark. They drove away with you to the harbour.
Again I followed. I saw them carry you on board. Before the yacht
weighed anchor I managed to climb unobserved into the dinghy. I lay down
full length in it, and no one suspected that I was there. I think you
know the rest.’
‘Was the yacht all ready for sea?’
‘The yacht was all ready for sea. The captain fellow was on the bridge,
and steam was up.’
‘Then they expected me! How could that be?’
‘They expected some one. I do not think they expected you.’
‘Did the second man go on board?’
‘He helped to carry you along the gangway, but he came back again to the
carriage. He was the driver.’
‘And no one else saw the business?’
‘The quay was deserted. You see, the last steamer had arrived for the
night.’
There was a brief silence, and then Nella ejaculated, under her breath.
‘Truly, it is a wonderful world!’
And it was a wonderful world for them, though scarcely perhaps, in the
sense which Nella Racksole had intended. They had just emerged from a
highly disconcerting experience. Among other minor inconveniences, they
had had no breakfast. They were out in the sea in a tiny boat. Neither
of them knew what the day might bring forth. The man, at least, had the
most serious anxieties for the safety of his Royal nephew. And yet--and
yet--neither of them wished that that voyage of the little boat on the
summer tide should come to an end. Each, perhaps unconsciously, had a
vague desire that it might last for ever, he lazily pulling, she
directing his course at intervals by a movement of her distractingly
pretty head. How was this condition of affairs to be explained? Well,
they were both young; they both had superb health, and all the ardour of
youth; and--they were together.
The boat was very small indeed; her face was scarcely a yard from his.
She, in his eyes, surrounded by the glamour of beauty and vast wealth;
he, in her eyes, surrounded by the glamour of masculine intrepidity and
the brilliance of a throne.
But all voyages come to an end, either at the shore or at the bottom of
the sea, and at length the dinghy passed between the stone jetties of
the harbour. The Prince rowed to the nearest steps, tied up the boat,
and they landed. It was six o’clock in the morning, and a day of
gorgeous sunlight had opened. Few people were about at that early hour.
‘And now, what next?’ said the Prince. ‘I must take you to an hotel.’
‘I am in your hands,’ she acquiesced, with a smile which sent the blood
racing through his veins. He perceived now that she was tired and
overcome, suffering from a sudden and natural reaction.
At the Hôtel Wellington the Prince told the sleepy door-keeper that they
had come by the early train from Bruges, and wanted breakfast at once.
It was absurdly early, but a common English sovereign will work wonders
in any Belgian hotel, and in a very brief time Nella and the Prince were
breakfasting on the verandah of the hotel upon chocolate that had been
specially and hastily brewed for them.
‘I never tasted such excellent chocolate,’ claimed the Prince.
The statement was wildly untrue, for the Hôtel Wellington is not
celebrated for its chocolate. Nevertheless Nella replied
enthusiastically, ‘Nor I.’
Then there was a silence, and Nella, feeling possibly that she had been
too ecstatic, remarked in a very matter-of-fact tone: ‘I must telegraph
to Papa instantly.’
Thus it was that Theodore Racksole received the telegram which drew him
away from Detective Marshall.
Chapter Sixteen THE WOMAN WITH THE RED HAT
‘THERE is one thing, Prince, that we have just got to settle straight
off,’ said Theodore Racksole.
They were all three seated--Racksole, his daughter, and Prince Aribert--
round a dinner table in a private room at the Hôtel Wellington. Racksole
had duly arrived by the afternoon boat, and had been met on the quay by
the other two. They had dined early, and Racksole had heard the full
story of the adventures by sea and land of Nella and the Prince. As to
his own adventure of the previous night he said very little, merely
explaining, with as little detail as possible, that Dimmock’s body had
come to light.
‘What is that?’ asked the Prince, in answer to Racksole’s remark.
‘We have got to settle whether we shall tell the police at once all that
has occurred, or whether we shall proceed on our own responsibility.
There can be no doubt as to which course we ought to pursue. Every
consideration of prudence points to the advisability of taking the
police into our confidence, and leaving the matter entirely in their
hands.’
‘Oh, Papa!’ Nella burst out in her pouting, impulsive way. ‘You surely
can’t think of such a thing. Why, the fun has only just begun.’
‘Do you call last night fun?’ questioned Racksole, gazing at her
solemnly.
‘Yes, I do,’ she said promptly. ‘Now.’
‘Well, I don’t,’ was the millionaire’s laconic response; but perhaps he
was thinking of his own situation in the lift.
‘Do you not think we might investigate a little further,’ said the
Prince judiciously, as he cracked a walnut, ‘just a little further--and
then, if we fail to accomplish anything, there would still be ample
opportunity to consult the police?’
‘How do you suggest we should begin?’ asked Racksole.
‘Well, there is the house which Miss Racksole so intrepidly entered last
evening’--he gave her the homage of an admiring glance; ‘you and I, Mr
Racksole, might examine that abode in detail.’
‘To-night?’
‘Certainly. We might do something.’
‘We might do too much.’
‘For example?’
‘We might shoot someone, or get ourselves mistaken for burglars. If we
outstepped the law, it would be no excuse for us that we had been acting
in a good cause.’
‘True,’ said the Prince. ‘Nevertheless--’ He stopped.
‘Nevertheless you have a distaste for bringing the police into the
business.
You want the hunt all to yourself. You are on fire with the ardour of
the chase. Is not that it? Accept the advice of an older man, Prince,
and sleep on this affair. I have little fancy for nocturnal escapades
two nights together. As for you, Nella, off with you to bed. The Prince
and I will have a yarn over such fluids as can be obtained in this
hole.’
‘Papa,’ she said, ‘you are perfectly horrid to-night.’
‘Perhaps I am,’ he said. ‘Decidedly I am very cross with you for coming
over here all alone. It was monstrous. If I didn’t happen to be the most
foolish of parents--There! Good-night. It’s nine o’clock. The Prince, I
am sure, will excuse you.’
If Nella had not really been very tired Prince Aribert might have been
the witness of a good-natured but stubborn conflict between the
millionaire and his spirited offspring. As it was, Nella departed with
surprising docility, and the two men were left alone.
‘Now,’ said Racksole suddenly, changing his tone, ‘I fancy that after
all I’m your man for a little amateur investigation to-night. And, if I
must speak the exact truth, I think that to sleep on this affair would
be about the very worst thing we could do. But I was anxious to keep
Nella out of harm’s way at any rate till to-morrow. She is a very
difficult creature to manage, Prince, and I may warn you,’ he laughed
grimly, ‘that if we do succeed in doing anything to-night we shall catch
it from her ladyship in the morning. Are you ready to take that risk?’
‘I am,’ the Prince smiled. ‘But Miss Racksole is a young lady of quite
remarkable nerve.’
‘She is,’ said Racksole drily. ‘I wish sometimes she had less.’
‘I have the highest admiration for Miss Racksole,’ said the Prince, and
he looked Miss Racksole’s father full in the face.
‘You honour us, Prince,’ Racksole observed. ‘Let us come to business. Am
I right in assuming that you have a reason for keeping the police out of
this business, if it can possibly be done?’
‘Yes,’ said the Prince, and his brow clouded. ‘I am very much afraid
that my poor nephew has involved himself in some scrape that he would