The Island Mystery Part 5

"Hope he'll enjoy the trip," he said. "Doesn't sound an attractive country by your account."

"Well," said Steinwitz, "there are some interesting things to see.

There's the Island of Salissa, for instance."

Gorman was startled by the mention of Salissa. He may possibly have shown his surprise. Steinwitz went on:

"By the way, talking of Salissa, Goldsturmer told me a curious thing the other day. You know Goldsturmer, don't you?"

"The jewel man?"

"Yes. He says your friend Donovan has bought the island of Salissa from that picturesque blackguard King Konrad Karl. I wonder if that can be true. Goldsturmer says he has it on the best authority."

"Those 'best authorities'," said Gorman, "are invariably liars. I have known scores of them."

"I daresay you're right," said Steinwitz; "anyhow, in this case the authority wasn't one that I should care to rely on. It was Madame Ypsilante--a very charming lady, but----"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I wouldn't care to bet my last s.h.i.+lling," said Gorman, "on the truth of a statement made by Madame Ypsilante."

"In this case," said Steinwitz, "her story was a ridiculous one, absurd on the face of it. She said that the American girl wants to set up as a monarch and that Konrad Karl had sold her the right to call herself Queen of Salissa."

"Either Goldsturmer was pulling your leg," said Gorman, "or Madame was pulling his. Was she trying to get anything out of him?"

"Pearls," said Steinwitz. "There is a certain rope of pearls----"

"That accounts for the whole thing," said Gorman.

Steinwitz seemed quite satisfied that it did. But he was not inclined to drop the subject altogether.

"A sale of that sort," he said, "would be impossible. The Emperor wouldn't permit it."

Then Gorman made a mistake. For the first time he showed a real interest in what Steinwitz said. There is every excuse for him. He wanted very much to understand the Emperor's position; and Steinwitz had already heard--possibly believed--the story of the sale of Salissa.

"What on earth has the Emperor got to do with it?" said Gorman.

"Megalia is an independent state, isn't it?"

Steinwitz laughed.

"Very few states," he said, "are independent of the Emperor."

There was something in the way he spoke, a note of arrogance, a suggestion of truculence, which nettled Gorman.

"Donovan," he said, "is a free citizen of the United States of America. That's what he says himself. I don't expect he cares a d.a.m.n about any emperor."

"Ah well," said Steinwitz, "it does not matter, does it? Since he has not bought the Island of Salissa, no question is likely to arise. The Emperor will not object to his wandering round the Cyrenian Sea in the _Ida_."

Gorman was singularly dull when he joined me in the smoking-room after luncheon. I do not recollect any other occasion on which I found him disinclined to talk. I opened the most seductive subjects. I said I was sure Ulster really meant to take up arms against Home Rule. I said that the Sinn Feiners were getting stronger and stronger in Ireland, and that neither Gorman nor any member of his party would be returned at the next General Election. Gorman must have wanted to contradict me; but he did not say a word. It was only when I got up to go away that he spoke; and then he made a remark which had no bearing whatever on anything which I had said.

"Women," he growled, "are h.e.l.l. In business they're red h.e.l.l."

CHAPTER VI

The Donovans started for Salissa within three weeks of the completion of the sale of the island. This was a remarkable achievement, and the whole credit is due to the amazing energy of Miss Daisy. She was all eagerness to enter into the possession of her kingdom; but she had no idea of going to an unknown island without proper supplies. She bought furniture for her house. King Konrad Karl was of opinion that there must be furniture in it. The Prime Minister, the Commander-in-Chief and the Admiral had almost certainly carried off any jewellery or plate there might have been, after the a.s.sa.s.sination of the late king.

Tables, chairs, carpets and beds, they must, he thought, have left behind, because the Megalian Navy was not big enough to carry very much cargo. But Miss Daisy took no risks. She bought everything necessary for a house of moderate size, and had the packing cases put into the hold of the _Ida_.

She gave large orders for every kind of portable provisions. She entrusted a wine merchant with the duty of stocking the royal cellars.

Certain dressmakers--eight, I believe--were kept busy. The new queen did not actually purchase royal robes; but she got every other kind of clothes from the most fantastic teagowns to severe costumes designed for mountaineering. There might be a mountain in Salissa. The Queen liked to be prepared for it if it were there.

She engaged a staff of servants, hitting on twenty as a suitable number for the household of a queen of a small state. The chief of this band was a dignified man who had once been butler to a duke. Miss Daisy gave him the t.i.tle of major domo, and provided him with a thick gold chain to hang round his neck. There were alterations to be made in the _Ida_, a steamer not originally intended to carry pa.s.sengers.

These were left to Steinwitz; but Miss Daisy managed to run down every day to see that the work was being done as quickly as possible. She had interviews with Captain Wilson, who commanded the _Ida_, and Mr.

Maurice Phillips, the first officer. She asked them both to dinner.

Captain Wilson, a Scot, was taciturn and suspicious. He regarded the job before him as an objectionable kind of practical joke, likely, before it was over, to impair his natural dignity. Mr. Phillips was filled with delight at the prospect. He was a young man with curly fair hair and cheerful eyes.

The start might have been made in even less than three weeks, if it had not been for the Heralds' Office. Miss Daisy wanted a banner to hoist over the royal palace in Salissa. She consulted Gorman, and gathered from what he told her that heralds are experts in designing banners. She found her way to the office and explained what she wanted to a suave, but rather anaemic young gentleman who talked about quarterings. Miss Daisy was not to be cowed by jargon.

"Put in any quarterings you fancy," she said. "I'm not particular. If ghules, argents and ramparts are extra, I am prepared to pay. But don't you meditate too much on the unforgotten glories of the past.

Get a move on."

That it appeared was the one thing the Heralds' Office could not do.

Miss Daisy stormed at its doors. She telephoned at short intervals all day. She even tried to persuade her father to take part in the persecution. But Mr. Donovan was too wise.

"There are things," he said, "which cannot be done. No man living, not even a railway boss--can speed up a state department."

"Any firm in New York," said Miss Daisy, "would have sent in designs for a dozen banners in half the time that young man in the Heraldry Office has been thinking about one."

"Heralds," said Mr. Donovan, "are mediaeval. If they laid hold on the idea of an automobile and went in for speed, they'd lose grip on the science of heraldry."

In the end, goaded and worried by Miss Daisy into a condition of bewildered exasperation, the Heralds' Office produced a large pale-blue flag. In the middle of it was a white flower, said to be a daisy. It arrived at Southampton by the hand of a special messenger just before the sailing of the _Ida_. Later on--when that flag became a subject for argument among diplomatists--the heralds disclaimed all real responsibility for it. They said that they had no idea they were making a royal standard. They said that they understood that they were preparing a flag for a young lady's house-boat. Miss Daisy a.s.serts, on the other hand, that her orders were quite distinct. She told the anaemic young man at their first interview that she wanted a "Royal Banner, done according to the best European specification."

Nine of the servants refused to sail at the last moment. They alleged that the sleeping accommodation on board the _Ida_ was not what they were accustomed to. The major domo only agreed to go on board when he was given the cabin originally intended for Miss Daisy. She occupied that which had been allotted to a kitchen-maid, one of the deserters.

Steinwitz and Gorman, who saw the party off, induced the other ten servants to go on board, apologizing humbly to them and explaining that the cabins in the _Ida_ had necessarily been very hurriedly made.

For all the use any of the servants were on the voyage, or afterwards, they might as well have stayed at home. The major domo shut himself up in his cabin and was resolutely seasick even in the calmest weather.

The others, though not as sick as he was, pretended to be incapable of doing anything.

The Donovans, Captain Wilson and Mr. Phillips were waited on by a steward, a man called Smith who had been brought from London and added to the s.h.i.+p's company at the last moment by Steinwitz. He proved to be an excellent servant and a man of varied talents. He took a hand in the cooking, mixed c.o.c.ktails, and acted as valet to Mr. Donovan, waited at table, made beds and kept the cabins beautifully clean. He even found time to save the major domo from starvation by bringing him soup and dry toast occasionally.

Captain Wilson, who could not get over the idea that he was being made to look ridiculous, remained rather aloof during the voyage. He accepted the cigars which Donovan pressed on him, and was civil to Miss Daisy, but he made no pretence of enjoying himself. Mr. Phillips was in high spirits the whole time. He fell in love with Miss Daisy the moment he saw her. But there was nothing mournful or despairing about the way the great pa.s.sion took him. He never brooded in silence over the hopelessness of his prospects; though as a subordinate officer in the merchant service, he had not much chance of marrying one of the richest heiresses in Europe. His devotion was like that of a frisky terrier which gambols round an adored mistress. Miss Daisy found him a most agreeable young man.

It was he, and not Captain Wilson, who came to her one evening with the news that they might expect to sight Salissa next morning. Miss Daisy scarcely slept. At five o'clock she was on the bridge. Captain Wilson told her that she might safely go to bed again till seven or eight. But she stayed where she was. Mr. Phillips fetched a cup of tea for her at six and another at seven. She drank both and ate a good deal of bread and b.u.t.ter. When at last the island appeared, a dim speck on a clear horizon line, she danced with excitement, and sent Mr. Phillips below to fetch her father. Mr. Donovan was at breakfast, attended by Smith, and flatly refused to stir. Captain Wilson, satisfied that the island lay just where he expected it, left the bridge and joined Mr. Donovan. Miss Daisy and Mr. Phillips stood together, their eyes fixed on the island.

Salissa is a beautiful island and had the good fortune to look its best when its new queen saw it. The sky was cloudless. The sea was almost calm. The island rose, clear outlined, from the blue water.

There are some islands, as there are some complexions, which are best looked at in a light which is not too clear, which require a dimness, a little mist, to make them beautiful. Salissa--Phillips would have said the same of Salissa's mistress--was at its loveliest on a clear May morning. The island appeared first as a flattened cone, intensely green. Then, as the steamer drew nearer, the cliffs which embraced the natural harbour shone out dazzlingly white. The sea rolled lazily, a belt of foam across the reef which almost blocked the entrance to the bay. Beneath the cliffs, right under them, the colour of the water turned to the palest blue. On the south side of the bay was a sandy beach, and above it a small village, seen to be a village afterwards, at first no more than splashes of bright colour, blue and red. Behind the village, sloping upwards, was a broad stretch of cultivated land.