The Puppet Crown, Harlod MacGrath [best new books to read .TXT] 📗

thank you. I shall be hunting pheasants."

And thereat he set to work cleaning the gun which had all but prostrated the inspector. Soon the room smelled of oiled rags and tobacco. Some-times the worker whistled softly. Sometimes he let the gun fall against his knee, and stared dreamily through the window at the flight of the ragged clouds. Again, he would shake his head, as if there were something which he failed to understand. Half an hour passed, when again some one knocked on the door.

"Come in!" Under his breath he added: "The gendarmes, likely."

But it was only the proprietor of the hotel. "Asking Herr's pardon," he said, "for this intrusion, but I have secured a man for you. I have the honor to recommend Johann Kopf as a good guide and hunter."

"Send him up. If he pleases me, I'll use him."

The proprietor withdrew.

Johann Kopf proved to be a young German with a round, ruddy face, which was so innocent of guile as to be out of harmony with the shrewd, piercing black eyes looking out of it. The Englishman eyed him inquisitively, even suspiciously.

"Are you a good hunter?" he asked.

"There is none better hereabout," answered Johann, twirling his cap with noticeably white fingers. It was only in after days that the Englishman appreciated the full significance of this answer.

"Speak English?"

"No. Herr's German is excellent, however."

"Humph!" The Englishman gave a final glance into the shining tubes of the gun, snapped the breach, and slipped it into the case. "You'll do. Return to the office; I'll be down presently."

"Will Herr hunt this morning?"

"No; what I wish this morning is to see the city of Bleiberg."

"That is simple," said Johann. The fleeting, imperceptible smile did not convict his eyes of false keenness.

He bowed out. When the door closed the Englishman waited until the sound of retreating steps failed. Then he took the gun case which he had not yet opened, and thrust it under the mattress of the bed.

"Johann," he said, as he put on a soft hat and drew a cane from the straps of the traveling bag, "you will certainly precede me in our hunting expeditions. I do not like your eyes; they are not at home in your boyish face. Humph! what a country. Every one speaks a different tongue."

The city of Bleiberg lay on a hill and in the valleys which fell away to the east and west. It was divided into two towns, the upper and the lower. The upper town and that part which lay on the shores of the Werter See was the modern and fashionable district. It was here that the king and the archbishop had their palaces and the wealthy their brick and stone. The public park skirted the lake, and was patterned after those fine gardens which add so much to the picturesqueness of Vienna and Berlin. There were wide gravel paths and long avenues of lofty chestnuts and lindens, iron benches, fountains and winding flower beds. The park, the palaces, and the Continental Hotel enclosed a public square, paved with asphalt, called the Hohenstaufenplatz, in the center of which rose a large marble fountain of several streams, guarded by huge bronze wolves. Here, too, were iron benches which were, for the most part, the meeting-place of the nursemaids. Carriages were allowed to make the circuit, but not to obstruct the way.

The Konigstrasse began at the Platz, divided the city, and wound away southward, merging into the highway which continued to the Thalian Alps, some thirty miles distant. The palaces were at the southeast corner of the Platz, first the king's, then the archbishop's. The private gardens of each ran into the lake. Directly across from the palaces stood the cathedral, a relic of five centuries gone. On the northwest corner stood the Continental Hotel, with terrace and parapet at the water's edge, and a delightful open-air cafe facing the Platz. September and October were prosperous months in Bleiberg. Fashionable people who desired quiet made Bleiberg an objective point. The pheasants were plump, there were boars, gray wolves, and not infrequently Monsieur Fourpaws of the shaggy coat wandered across from the Carpathians.

As to the lower town, it was given over to the shops and markets, the barracks, the university, and the Rathhaus, which served as the house of the Diet. It was full of narrow streets and quaint dwellings.

Up the Konigstrasse the guide led the Englishman, who nodded whenever the voluble chatter of the German pleased him. When they began the descent of the hill, the vista which opened before them drew from the Englishman an ejaculation of delight. There lay the lake, like a bright new coin in a green purse; the light of the sun broke on the white buildings and flashed from the windows; and the lawns twinkled like emeralds.

"It makes Vienna look to her laurels, eh, Herr?" said Johann.

"But it must have cost a pretty penny."

"Aye, that it did; and the king is being impressed with that fact every day. There are few such fine palaces outside of first- class kingdoms. The cathedral there was erected at the desire of a pope, born five hundred years ago. It is full of romance. There is to be a grand wedding there on the twentieth of this month. That is why there are so many fashionable people at the hotels. The crown prince of Carnavia, which is the large kingdom just east of us, is to wed the Princess Alexia, the daughter of the king."

"On the twentieth? That is strange."

"Strange?"

"), I meant nothing," said the Englishman, jerking back his shoulders; "I had in mind another affair."

There was a flash in Johann's eyes, but he subdued it before the Englishman was aware of its presence. "However," said Johann, "there is something strange. The prince was to have arrived a week ago to complete the final arrangements for the wedding. His suite has been here a week, but no sign of his Highness. He stopped over a train at Ehrenstein to visit for a few hours a friend of the king, his father. Since then nothing has been heard from him. The king, it is said, fears that some accident has happened to him. Carnavia is also disturbed over this disappearance. Some whisper of a beautiful peasant girl. Who can say?"

"Any political significance in this marriage?"

"Leopold expects to strengthen his throne by the alliance. But-" Johann's mouth closed and his tongue pushed out his cheek. "There will be some fine doings in the good city of Bleiberg before the month is gone. The minister from the duchy has been given his passports. Every one concedes that trouble is likely to ensue. Baron von Rumpf-"

"Baron von Rumpf," repeated the Englishman thoughtfully.

"Yes; he is not a man to submit to accusations without making a disagreeable defense."

"What does the duke say?"

"The duke?"

"Yes."

"His Highness has been dead these four years."

"Dead four years? So much for man and his futile dreams. Dead four years," absently.

"What did you say, Herr?"

"I? Nothing. How did he die?"

"He was thrown from his horse and killed. But the duchess lives, and she is worthy of her sire. Eh, Herr, there is a woman for you! She should sit on this throne; it is hers by right. These Osians are aliens and were forced on us."

"It seems to me, young man, that you are talking treason."

"That is my business, Herr." Johann laughed. "I am a socialist, and occasionally harangue for the reds. And sometimes, when I am in need of money, I find myself in the employ of the police."

The muscles of the Englishman's jaws hardened, then they relaxed. The expression on the face of his guide was free from anything but bonhomie.

"One must live," Johann added deprecatingly.

"Yes, one must live," replied the Englishman.

"O! but I could sell some fine secrets to the Osians had they money to pay. Ach! but what is the use? The king has no money; he is on the verge of bankruptcy, and this pretty bit of scenery is the cause of it."

"So you are a socialist?" said the Englishman, passing over Johann's declamatory confidences.

"Yes, Herr. All men are brothers."

"Go to!" laughed the Englishman, "you aren't even a second cousin to me. But stay, what place is this we are passing?" indicating with his cane a red-brick mansion which was fronted by broad English lawns and protected from intrusion by a high iron fence.


"That is the British legation, Herr."

The Englishman stopped and stared, unconscious of the close scrutiny of the guide. His eyes traveled up the wide flags leading to the veranda, and he drew a picture of a square- shouldered old man tramping backward and forward, the wind tangling his thin white hair, his hands behind his back, his chin in his collar and at his heels a white bulldog. Rapidly another picture came. It was an English scene. And the echo of a voice fell on his ears. "My way and the freedom of the house and the key to the purse; your way and a closed door while I live. You can go, but you can not come back. You have decided? Yes? Then good morning." Thirteen years, thirteen years! He had sacrificed the freedom of the house and the key to the purse, the kind eyes and the warm pressure of that old hand. And for what? Starvation in the deserts, plenty of scars and little of thanks, ingratitude and forgetfulness.

And now the kind eyes were closed and the warm hand cold. O, to recall the vanished face, the silent voice, the misspent years, the April days and their illusions! The Englishman took the monocle from his eye and looked at it, wondering what had caused the sudden blur.

"There was a fine old man there in the bygone days," said Johann.

"And who was he?"

"Lord Fitzgerald, the British minister. He and Leopold were close friends." Johann's investigating gaze went unrewarded. The Englishman's face had resumed its expression of mild curiosity.

"Ah; a compatriot of mine," he said. Inwardly he mused: "This guide is watching me; let him catch me if he can. His duchess? I know far too much of her!"

"He was a millionaire, too," went on Johann.

"Well, we can't all be rich. Come."

They crossed the Strasse and traversed the walk at the side of the palace enclosures. The Englishman aimlessly trailed his cane along the green pickets of the fence till they ended in a stone arch which rose high over the driveway. The gates were open, and coming toward the two wanderers as they stood at the curb rolled the royal barouche, on each side of which rode a mounted cuirassier, sashed and helmeted. The Englishman, however, had observed nothing; he was lost in some dream.

"Look, Herr!" cried Johann, rousing the other by a pull at the sleeve. "Look!" Socialist though he claimed to be, Johann touched his cap.

In the barouche, leaning back among the black velvet cushions, her face mellowed by the shade of a small parasol, was a young woman of nineteen or twenty, as beautiful as a da Vinci freshly conceived. The Englishman saw a pair of grave dark eyes which, in the passing, met his and held them. He caught his breath.

"Who is that?" he asked.

"That is her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Alexia."