Part 18 (1/2)

'Question for question,' said Levi. 'Let's clear the ground first, Mr Racksole. Why did you buy this hotel? That's a conundrum that's been puzzling a lot of our fellows in the City for some days past. Why did you buy the Grand Babylon? And what is the next move to be?'

'There is no next move,' answered Racksole candidly, 'and I will tell you why I bought the hotel; there need be no secret about it. I bought it because of a whim.' And then Theodore Racksole gave this little Jew, whom he had begun to respect, a faithful account of the transaction with Mr Felix Babylon. 'I suppose,' he added, 'you find a difficulty in appreciating my state of mind when I did the deal.'

'Not a bit,' said Mr Levi. 'I once bought an electric launch on the Thames in a very similar way, and it turned out to be one of the most satisfactory purchases I ever made. Then it's a simple accident that you own this hotel at the present moment?'

'A simple accident--all because of a beefsteak and a bottle of Ba.s.s.'

'Um!' grunted Mr Sampson Levi, stroking his triple chin.

'To return to Prince Eugen,' Racksole resumed. 'I was expecting His Highness here. The State apartments had been prepared for him. He was due on the very afternoon that young Dimmock died. But he never came, and I have not heard why he has failed to arrive; nor have I seen his name in the papers. What his business was in London, I don't know.'

'I will tell you,' said Mr Sampson Levi, 'he was coming to arrange a loan.'

'A State loan?'

'No--a private loan.'

'Whom from?'

'From me, Sampson Levi. You look surprised. If you'd lived in London a little longer, you'd know that I was just the person the Prince would come to. Perhaps you aren't aware that down Throgmorton Street way I'm called ”The Court p.a.w.nbroker”, because I arrange loans for the minor, second-cla.s.s Princes of Europe. I'm a stockbroker, but my real business is financing some of the little Courts of Europe. Now, I may tell you that the Hereditary Prince of Posen particularly wanted a million, and he wanted it by a certain date, and he knew that if the affair wasn't fixed up by a certain time here he wouldn't be able to get it by that certain date. That's why I'm surprised he isn't in London.'

'What did he need a million for?'

'Debts,' answered Sampson Levi laconically.

'His own?'

'Certainly.'

'But he isn't thirty years of age?'

'What of that? He isn't the only European Prince who has run up a million of debts in a dozen years. To a Prince the thing is as easy as eating a sandwich.'

'And why has he taken this sudden resolution to liquidate them?'

'Because the Emperor and the lady's parents won't let him marry till he has done so! And quite right, too! He's got to show a clean sheet, or the Princess Anna of Eckstein-Schwartzburg will never be Princess of Posen. Even now the Emperor has no idea how much Prince Eugen's debts amount to. If he had--!'

'But would not the Emperor know of this proposed loan?'

'Not necessarily at once. It could be so managed. Twig?' Mr Sampson Levi laughed. 'I've carried these little affairs through before. After marriage it might be allowed to leak out. And you know the Princess Anna's fortune is pretty big! Now, Mr Racksole,' he added, abruptly changing his tone, 'where do you suppose Prince Eugen has disappeared to? Because if he doesn't turn up to-day he can't have that million. To- day is the last day. To-morrow the money will be appropriated, elsewhere. Of course, I'm not alone in this business, and my friends have something to say.'

'You ask me where I think Prince Eugen has disappeared to?'

'I do.'

'Then you think it's a disappearance?'

Sampson Levi nodded. 'Putting two and two together,' he said, 'I do. The Dimmock business is very peculiar--very peculiar, indeed. Dimmock was a left-handed relation of the Posen family. Twig? Scarcely anyone knows that.