The Princess Dehra Part 16

"Bear with him, Your Highness," said Courtney-"I a.s.sure you he will learn in time.... Meanwhile, Monsieur le Prince, I'm all attention."

Armand leaned over to Lady Helen. "His manners are rather cra.s.s," he remarked, in a confidential whisper, "but he really means well." Then he pushed the cigarettes across to Courtney.

"Take a fresh one, old chap; the story may be a bit long."

VIII INFERENCE OR FACT

Through the story Courtney sat with half closed eyes, pulling at his gray imperial, the unlighted cigarette between his lips. With the main facts he was already familiar, as was every Emba.s.sy in Dornlitz, but much of the small details were new to him; and at the end, for a while, he was silent, fitting the incidents together in his mind.

"Do you care to tell me what the police make of it?" he asked.

"Nothing, as usual," Armand answered. "Their intelligence doesn't run beyond a hidden panel, and sounding every wall and floor in the Palace; they scorn any theory but that His Majesty concealed the Book."

"Which is perfectly absurd," Dehra added; "why should he conceal it, with the box and the vault at hand?"

"Why don't you make them take another lead?" Lady Helen asked.

"Because I'm sick of them and their ways.-I've sent them away-and away they stay; in another day there wouldn't have been a wall in the Palace."

"She told the officer in charge the only way he could ever find the Book was not to search for it," Armand laughed. "And then gave him a grade in rank to salve the words."

"Don't interrupt, sir!" the Princess exclaimed. "And remember I can't give you a grade."

"Was any one with the King after you left him that night?" Courtney asked.

"Only Adolph, the valet," Dehra replied. "I'm quite sure he would receive no one at that hour."

"And what did Adolph say as to the Book?"

"That he hadn't seen it for four days prior to Frederick's death," said Armand.

"Who told you that?" the Princess asked quickly.

"He told the Council."

"Then he deliberately deceived you; he saw it the night I did-the last night;-he came to the door just after the King spoke of Armand's decree."

Courtney struck a match and carefully lit the cigarette.

"Where is Adolph?" he asked.

"He has gone back to France, I think."

Courtney sent a quick, inquiring look at Armand, which the latter missed, having turned toward Lady Helen.

"Oh, I remember," he replied; "there was a stray line about him in the paper-grief and so forth. At the time, I inferred he had been banished by the police, for some reason."

"We can have him back," she interjected.

The Archduke looked around. "Adolph is dead," he said. "His body was found behind the hedge under the King's library windows three days after Frederick's demise."

"But his return to France?" Dehra exclaimed.

"A fiction of your police, doubtless," said Courtney dryly; "they are very clever.... He was-killed, of course?"

"In the Park, the night the King died; a dagger wound in the heart," the Archduke explained.

"Do you know that to be the fact; or is it the police theory?"

"I don't know anything-indeed, it was only yesterday I learned of it and sent for the papers in the case."

"And the-killer, I a.s.sume, has not been apprehended."

"Naturally not," said Armand; and proceeded to explain the matter as the police viewed it.

"What do you think, now?" Dehra demanded, at the end.

A bit of a smile crept into Courtney's face.

"I think," he said, "that the only circ.u.mstance which relieves the police from utter imbecility is their not knowing that the valet had lied to the Royal Council as to the Book."

The Princess' finger tips began to tap the table, and the little wrinkle showed between her eyes.

"Don't, my dear, don't," laughed Armand; "you can't give the entire Bureau a grade in rank-and besides, they are not to blame. I called the Chief down hard yesterday, only to have him tell me it was the ancient and rigid custom never, except by special order, to investigate a crime that touched the royal household, nor to follow any clue which led inside the Palace. And I apologized-and instantly abolished the custom."

"They were specially ordered to search for the Book of Laws," the Princess insisted; "wouldn't that lead them to Adolph?"

"Under their theory Adolph had nothing to do with the Book," said Courtney.

"Just so," the Archduke remarked; "and between their rotten theories and customs the business has been sadly bungled."

"Their fatal fallacy," said Courtney, "was, it seems to me, in a.s.suming that no one but His Majesty and Her Highness could open the vault.-I have no doubt the valet had discovered the combination."

"But the box," Dehra objected; "it was locked when I got it, and Adolph could not have had the key."

"He might have had a duplicate."

"I think not," said Armand; "it is a trick lock with a most complicated arrangement, and to make a duplicate would have required the original key."

"Well, however that may be is not essential," said Courtney; "the fact remains that, between eleven o'clock of one night and ten o'clock of the second day thereafter, the Book disappeared; and the last time it was seen, to our knowledge, it was lying under the King's own hand, on the table in his library, with the open box beside it; and that the latter was found, closed and locked and empty, in its place in the vault, while the most thorough search for the Book has been ineffectual except, it seems, to prove that it is not in the Palace. We can safely a.s.sume that His Majesty did not hide it; hence he returned it to its place; and whoever took it, got it out of a locked box in a locked vault. For this, Adolph had the best opportunity."

"But what possible motive?" the Princess exclaimed.

Courtney smiled. "If I could tell you that, we would be far toward finding the Book; yet he had a motive-his lie to the Council proves it."