Part 3 (1/2)
Two hours later I was commanded to the Kaiser's presence, and found him in counsel with his son.
The Emperor, who wore the uniform of the Guards, looked pale and troubled, yet in his eyes there was a keen, determined look. As I pa.s.sed the sentries and entered the lofty study, with its upholstery and walls of pale green damask--that room from which the Empire and the whole world have so often been addressed--the Kaiser broke off short in his conversation.
Turning to me as he still sat at his littered table, he said in that quick, impetuous way of his:
”Count Heltzendorff, the Crown-Prince has informed me of what has occurred this evening in the Lennestra.s.se. I wish you to convey this at once to Count von Leutenberg and to give it into his own hand. There is no reply.”
And His Majesty handed me a rather bulky envelope addressed in his own bold handwriting, and bearing his own private cipher impressed in black wax.
Thus commanded, I bowed, withdrew, and took a taxicab straight to the Lennestra.s.se, being ushered by Josef into the presence of husband and wife in that same room I had quitted a couple of hours before.
I handed the Count the packet the Emperor had given me, and with trembling fingers he tore it open.
From within he drew three letters, those same letters which his wife had written to London, and which had been intercepted by the Secret Service--the letters which I had read in his Highness's room.
As he scanned the lines which the Emperor had penned his face blanched.
A loud cry of dismay escaped his wife as she recognized her own letters, and she s.n.a.t.c.hed the note from her husband's hand and also read it.
The light died instantly from her beautiful countenance. Then, turning to me, she said in a hoa.r.s.e, hopeless tone:
”Thank you, Count von Heltzendorff. Tell His Majesty the Emperor that his command shall be--yes, it shall be obeyed.”
Those last words she spoke in a deep, hoa.r.s.e whisper, a strange, wild look of desperation in her blue eyes.
An hour later I reported again at the Imperial Palace, was granted audience of the Emperor, and gave him the verbal reply.
His Majesty uttered no word, merely nodding his head slowly in approval.
Next afternoon a painful sensation was caused throughout Berlin when the _Abendpost_ published the news that Count von Leutenberg, the man so recently promoted by the Emperor, and his pretty wife had both been found dead in their room. During the night they had evidently burned some papers, for the tinder was found in the stove, and having agreed to die together, they being so much attached during life, they had both taken prussic acid in some wine, the bottle and half-emptied gla.s.ses being still upon the table.
The romantic affair, the truth of which I here reveal for the first time, was regarded by all Berlin as an inexplicable tragedy. The public are still unaware of how those intercepted letters contained serious warnings to the British Government of the Emperor's hostile intentions towards Britain, and the probable date of the outbreak of war. Indeed, they recounted a private conversation which the Countess had overheard between the Kaiser and Count Zeppelin, repeating certain opprobrious epithets which the All-Highest had bestowed upon one or two British statesmen, and she also pointed out the great danger of a pending rupture between the two Powers, as well as explaining some details regarding the improved Zeppelins in course of construction secretly on Lake Constance, and certain scandals regarding the private life of the Crown-Prince.
It was for the latter reason that the heir, aided by the War-Lord, took his revenge in a manner so crafty, so subtle, and so typical of the innate cunning of the Hohenzollerns.
Thus the well-meant warnings of one of your good, honest Englishwomen never reached the unsuspicious address to which they were sent, and thus did ”Willie”--who, as I afterwards discovered, devised that subtle vengeance--act as the Emperor's catspaw.
SECRET NUMBER TWO
THE CROWN-PRINCE'S REVENGE
The Trautmann affair was one which caused a wild sensation at Potsdam in the autumn of 1912.
In the Emperor's immediate entourage there was a great deal of gossip, most of it ill-natured and cruel, for most ladies-in-waiting possess serpents' tongues. Their tongues are as sharp as their features, and though there may be a few pretty maids-of-honour, yet the majority of women at Court are, as you know, my dear Le Queux, mostly plain and uninteresting.
I became implicated in the unsavoury Trautmann affair, in a somewhat curious manner.
A few months after the Leutenberg tragedy I chanced to be lunching at the ”Esplanade” in Berlin, chatting with Laroque, of the French Emba.s.sy.