The Grand Babylon Hôtel
and the father a thousand guineas--how would that meet the case?’
‘My dear Eugen!’ exclaimed Aribert aghast. ‘A thousand guineas! Do you
know that Theodore Racksole could buy up all Posen from end to end
without making himself a pauper. A thousand guineas! You might as well
offer him sixpence.’
‘Then what must I offer?’
‘Nothing, except your thanks. Anything else would be an insult. These
are no ordinary hotel people.’
‘Can’t I give the little girl a bracelet?’ Prince Eugen gave a sinister
laugh.
Aribert looked at him steadily. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Why did you kiss her--that night?’ asked Prince Eugen carelessly.
‘Kiss whom?’ said Aribert, blushing and angry, despite his most
determined efforts to keep calm and unconcerned.
‘The Racksole girl.’
‘When do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ said Prince Eugen, ‘that night in Ostend when I was ill. You
thought I was in a delirium. Perhaps I was. But somehow I remember that
with extraordinary distinctness. I remember raising my head for a
fraction of an instant, and just in that fraction of an instant you
kissed her. Oh, Uncle Aribert!’
‘Listen, Eugen, for God’s sake. I love Nella Racksole. I shall marry
her.’
‘You!’ There was a long pause, and then Eugen laughed. ‘Ah!’ he said.
‘They all talk like that to start with. I have talked like that myself,
dear uncle; it sounds nice, and it means nothing.’
‘In this case it means everything, Eugen,’ said Aribert quietly. Some
accent of determination in the latter’s tone made Eugen rather more
serious.
‘You can’t marry her,’ he said. ‘The Emperor won’t permit a morganatic
marriage.’
‘The Emperor has nothing to do with the affair. I shall renounce my
rights.
I shall become a plain citizen.’
‘In which case you will have no fortune to speak of.’
‘But my wife will have a fortune. Knowing the sacrifices which I shall
have made in order to marry her, she will not hesitate to place that
fortune in my hands for our mutual use,’ said Aribert stiffly.
‘You will decidedly be rich,’ mused Eugen, as his ideas dwelt on
Theodore Racksole’s reputed wealth. ‘But have you thought of this,’ he
asked, and his mild eyes glowed again in a sort of madness. ‘Have you
thought that I am unmarried, and might die at any moment, and then the
throne will descend to you--to you, Aribert?’
‘The throne will never descend to me, Eugen,’ said Aribert softly, ‘for
you will live. You are thoroughly convalescent. You have nothing to
fear.’
‘It is the next seven days that I fear,’ said Eugen.
‘The next seven days! Why?’
‘I do not know. But I fear them. If I can survive them--’
‘Mr Sampson Levi, sire,’ Hans announced in a loud tone.
Chapter Twenty MR SAMPSON LEVI BIDS PRINCE EUGEN GOOD MORNING
PRINCE EUGEN started. ‘I will see him,’ he said, with a gesture to Hans
as if to indicate that Mr Sampson Levi might enter at once.
‘I beg one moment first,’ said Aribert, laying a hand gently on his
nephew’s arm, and giving old Hans a glance which had the effect of
precipitating that admirably trained servant through the doorway.
‘What is it?’ asked Prince Eugen crossly. ‘Why this sudden seriousness?
Don’t forget that I have an appointment with Mr Sampson Levi, and must
not keep him waiting. Someone said that punctuality is the politeness of
princes.’
‘Eugen,’ said Aribert, ‘I wish you to be as serious as I am. Why cannot
we have faith in each other? I want to help you. I have helped you. You
are my titular Sovereign; but on the other hand I have the honour to be
your uncle:
I have the honour to be the same age as you, and to have been your
companion from youth up. Give me your confidence. I thought you had
given it me years ago, but I have lately discovered that you had your
secrets, even then. And now, since your illness, you are still more
secretive.’
‘What do you mean, Aribert?’ said Eugen, in a tone which might have been
either inimical or friendly. ‘What do you want to say?’
‘Well, in the first place, I want to say that you will not succeed with
the estimable Mr Sampson Levi.’
‘Shall I not?’ said Eugen lightly. ‘How do you know what my business is
with him?’
‘Suffice it to say that I know. You will never get that million pounds
out of him.’
Prince Eugen gasped, and then swallowed his excitement. ‘Who has been
talking? What million?’ His eyes wandered uneasily round the room. ‘Ah!’
he said, pretending to laugh. ‘I see how it is. I have been chattering
in my delirium. You mustn’t take any notice of that, Aribert. When one
has a fever one’s ideas become grotesque and fanciful.’
‘You never talked in your delirium,’ Aribert replied; ‘at least not
about yourself. I knew about this projected loan before I saw you in
Ostend.’
‘Who told you?’ demanded Eugen fiercely.
‘Then you admit that you are trying to raise a loan?’
‘I admit nothing. Who told you?’
‘Theodore Racksole, the millionaire. These rich men have no secrets from
each other. They form a coterie, closer than any coterie of ours. Eugen,
and far more powerful. They talk, and in talking they rule the world,
these millionaires. They are the real monarchs.’
‘Curse them!’ said Eugen.
‘Yes, perhaps so. But let me return to your case. Imagine my shame, my
disgust, when I found that Racksole could tell me more about your
affairs than I knew myself. Happily, he is a good fellow; one can trust
him; otherwise I should have been tempted to do something desperate when
I discovered that all your private history was in his hands. Eugen, let
us come to the point; why do you want that million? Is it actually true
that you are so deeply in debt? I have no desire to improve the
occasion. I merely ask.’
‘And what if I do owe a million?’ said Prince Eugen with assumed valour.
‘Oh, nothing, my dear Eugen, nothing. Only it is rather a large sum to
have scattered in ten years, is it not? How did you manage it?’
‘Don’t ask me, Aribert. I’ve been a fool. But I swear to you that the
woman whom you call “the lady in the red hat” is the last of my follies.
I am about to take a wife, and become a respectable Prince.’
‘Then the engagement with Princess Anna is an accomplished fact?’
‘Practically so. As soon as I have settled with Levi, all will be
smooth.
Aribert, I wouldn’t lose Anna for the Imperial throne. She is a good and
pure woman, and I love her as a man might love an angel.’
‘And yet you would deceive her as to your debts, Eugen?’
‘Not her, but her absurd parents, and perhaps the Emperor. They have
heard rumours, and I must set those rumours at rest by presenting to
them a clean sheet.’
‘I am glad you have been frank with me, Eugen,’ said Prince Aribert,
‘but I will be plain with you. You will never marry the Princess Anna.’
‘And why?’ said Eugen, supercilious again.
‘Because her parents will not permit it. Because you will not be able to
present a clean sheet to them. Because this Sampson Levi will never lend
you a million.’
‘Explain yourself.’
‘I propose to do so. You were kidnapped--it is a horrid word, but we
must use it--in Ostend.’
‘True.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘I suppose because that vile old red-hatted woman and her accomplices
wanted to get some money out of me. Fortunately, thanks to you, they
didn’t.’
‘Not at all,’ said Aribert. ‘They wanted no money from you. They knew
well enough that you had no money. They knew you were the naughty
schoolboy among European Princes, with no sense of responsibility or of
duty towards your kingdom. Shall I tell you why they kidnapped you?’
‘When you have done abusing me, my dear uncle.’
‘They kidnapped you merely to keep you out of England for a few days,
merely to compel you to fail in your appointment with Sampson Levi. And
it appears to me that they succeeded. Assuming that you don’t obtain the
money from Levi, is there another financier in all Europe from whom you
can get it--on such strange security as you have to offer?’
‘Possibly there is not,’ said Prince Eugen calmly. ‘But, you see, I
shall get it from Sampson Levi. Levi promised it, and I know from other
sources that he is a man of his word. He said that the money, subject to
certain formalities, would be available till--’
‘Till?’
‘Till the end of June.’
‘And it is now the end of July.’
‘Well, what is a month? He is only too glad to lend the money. He will
get excellent interest. How on earth have you got into your sage old
head this notion of a plot against me? The idea is ridiculous. A plot
against me? What for?’
‘Have you ever thought of Bosnia?’ asked Aribert coldly.
‘What of Bosnia?’
‘I need not tell you that the King of Bosnia is naturally under
obligations to Austria, to whom he owes his crown. Austria is anxious
for him to make a good influential marriage.’
‘Well, let him.’
‘He is going to. He is going to marry the Princess Anna.’
‘Not while I live. He made overtures there a year ago, and was
rebuffed.’
‘Yes; but he will make overtures again, and this time he will not be
rebuffed. Oh, Eugen! can’t you see that this plot against you is being
engineered by some persons who know all about your affairs, and whose
desire is to prevent your marriage with Princess Anna? Only one man in
Europe can have any motive for wishing to prevent your marriage with
Princess Anna, and that is the man who means to marry her himself.’
Eugen went very pale.
‘Then, Aribert, do you mean to convey to me that my detention in Ostend
was contrived by the agents of the King of Bosnia?’
‘I do.’
‘With a view to stopping my negotiations with Sampson Levi, and so
putting an end to the possibility of my marriage with Anna?’
Aribert nodded.
‘You are a good friend to me, Aribert. You mean well. But you are
mistaken.
You have been worrying about nothing.’
‘Have you forgotten about Reginald Dimmock?’
‘I remember you said that he had died.’
‘I said nothing of the sort. I said that he had been assassinated. That
was part of it, my poor Eugen.’
‘Pooh!’ said Eugen. ‘I don’t believe he was assassinated. And as for
Sampson Levi, I will bet you a thousand marks that he and I come to
terms this morning, and that the million is in my hands before I leave
London.’ Aribert shook his head.
‘You seem to be pretty sure of Mr Levi’s character. Have you had much to
do with him before?’
‘Well,’ Eugen hesitated a second, ‘a little. What young man in my
position hasn’t had something to do with Mr Sampson Levi at one time or
another?’
‘I haven’t,’ said Aribert.
‘You! You are a fossil.’ He rang a silver bell. ‘Hans! I will receive Mr
Sampson Levi.’
Whereupon Aribert discreetly departed, and Prince Eugen sat down in the
great velvet chair, and began to look at the papers which Hans had
previously placed upon the table.
‘Good morning, your Royal Highness,’ said Sampson Levi, bowing as he
entered. ‘I trust your Royal Highness is well.’
‘Moderately, thanks,’ returned the Prince.
In spite of the fact that he had had as much to do with people of Royal
blood as any plain man in Europe, Sampson Levi had never yet learned how
to be at ease with these exalted individuals during the first few
minutes of an interview. Afterwards, he resumed command of himself and
his faculties, but at the beginning he was invariably flustered, scarlet
of face, and inclined to perspiration.
‘We will proceed to business at once,’ said Prince Eugen. ‘Will you take
a seat, Mr Levi?’
‘I thank your Royal Highness.’
‘Now as to that loan which we had already practically arranged--a
million, I think it was,’ said the Prince airily.
‘A million,’ Levi acquiesced, toying with his enormous watch chain.
‘Everything is now in order. Here are the papers and I should like to
finish the matter up at once.’
‘Exactly, your Highness, but--’