Part 12 (1/2)

'There was an understanding.'

'Impossible!'

'Your Highness, the man who wishes to probe a mystery to its root never uses the word ”impossible”. But I will say this for young Mr Dimmock. I think he repented, and I think that it was because he repented that he-- er--died so suddenly, and that his body was spirited away.'

'Why has no one told me these things before?' Aribert exclaimed.

'Princes seldom hear the truth,' she said.

He was astonished at her coolness, her firmness of a.s.sertion, her air of complete acquaintance with the world.

'Miss Racksole,' he said, 'if you will permit me to say it, I have never in my life met a woman like you. May I rely on your sympathy--your support?'

'My support, Prince? But how?'

'I do not know,' he replied. 'But you could help me if you would. A woman, when she has brain, always has more brain than a man.'

'Ah!' she said ruefully, 'I have no brains, but I do believe I could help you.'

What prompted her to make that a.s.sertion she could not have explained, even to herself. But she made it, and she had a suspicion--a prescience- -that it would be justified, though by what means, through what good fortune, was still a mystery to her.

'Go to Berlin,' she said. 'I see that you must do that; you have no alternative. As for the rest, we shall see. Something will occur. I shall be here. My father will be here. You must count us as your friends.'

He kissed her hand when he left, and afterwards, when she was alone, she kissed the spot his lips had touched again and again. Now, thinking the matter out in the calmness of solitude, all seemed strange, unreal, uncertain to her. Were conspiracies actually possible nowadays? Did queer things actually happen in Europe? And did they actually happen in London hotels? She dined with her father that night.

'I hear Prince Aribert has left,' said Theodore Racksole.

'Yes,' she a.s.sented. She said not a word about their interview.

Chapter Eight ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF THE BARONESS

ON the following morning, just before lunch, a lady, accompanied by a maid and a considerable quant.i.ty of luggage, came to the Grand Babylon Hotel. She was a plump, little old lady, with white hair and an old- fas.h.i.+oned bonnet, and she had a quaint, simple smile of surprise at everything in general.

Nevertheless, she gave the impression of belonging to some aristocracy, though not the English aristocracy. Her tone to her maid, whom she addressed in broken English--the girl being apparently English--was distinctly insolent, with the calm, unconscious insolence peculiar to a certain type of Continental n.o.bility. The name on the lady's card ran thus: 'Baroness Zerlinski'. She desired rooms on the third floor. It happened that Nella was in the bureau.

'On the third floor, madam?' questioned Nella, in her best clerkly manner.

'I did say on de tird floor,' said the plump little old lady.

'We have accommodation on the second floor.'

'I wish to be high up, out of de dust and in de light,' explained the Baroness.

'We have no suites on the third floor, madam.'

'Never mind, no mattaire! Have you not two rooms that communicate?'

Nella consulted her books, rather awkwardly.