The Illustrious Prince Part 13

"After all, perhaps, it isn't his fault," Penelope said, breathing a little sigh of relief as she rose to her feet. "Mr. Harvey is not always considerate, and I know that several of the staff are away on leave."

"That's right, my dear," the d.u.c.h.ess said, smiling, "stick up for your countrymen. I suppose he'll find us sometime during the evening. We can all go to the theatre together; the omnibus is outside."

The little party pa.s.sed through the foyer and into the hall of the hotel, where they waited while the d.u.c.h.ess' carriage was called. Mr.

Coulson was there in an easy chair, smoking a cigar, and watching the people coming and going. He studied the pa.s.sers-by with ah air of impersonal but pleased interest. Penelope and Lady Grace were certainly admirable foils. The latter was fair, with beautiful complexion--a trifle sunburnt, blue eyes, good-humored mouth, and features excellent in their way, but a little lacking in expression. Her figure was good; her movements slow but not ungraceful; her dress of white ivory satin a little extravagant for the occasion. She looked exactly what she was,--a well-bred, well-disposed, healthy young Englishwoman, of aristocratic parentage. Penelope, on the other hand, more simply dressed, save for the string of pearls which hung from her neck, had the look of a creature from another world. She had plenty of animation; a certain nervous energy seemed to keep her all the time restless. She talked ceaselessly, sometimes to the Prince, more often to Sir Charles. Her gray-green eyes were bright, her cheeks delicately flushed. She spoke and looked and moved as one on fire with the joy of life. The Prince, noticing that Lady Grace had been left to herself for the last few moments, moved a little towards her and commenced a courteous conversation. Sir Charles took the opportunity to bend over his companion.

"Penelope," he said, "you are queer tonight. Tell me what it is? You don't really dislike the Prince, do you?"

"Why, of course not," she answered, looking back into the restaurant and listening, as though interested in the music. "He is odd, though, isn't he? He is so serious and, in a way, so convincing. He is like a being transplanted into an absolutely alien soil. One would like to laugh at him, and one can't."

"He is rather an anomaly," Sir Charles said, humming lightly to himself.

"I suppose, compared with us matter-of-fact people, he must seem to your s.e.x quite a romantic figure."

"He makes no particular appeal to me at all," Penelope declared.

Somerfield was suddenly thoughtful.

"Sometimes, Penelope," he said, "I don't quite understand you, especially when we speak about the Prince. I have come to the conclusion that you either like him very much, or you dislike him very much, or you have some thoughts about him which you tell to no one."

She lifted her skirts. The carriage had been called.

"I like your last suggestion," she declared. "You may believe that that is true."

On their way out, the Prince was accosted by some friends and remained talking for several moments. When he entered the omnibus, there seemed to Penelope, who found herself constantly watching him closely, a certain added gravity in his demeanor. The drive to the theatre was a short one, and conversation consisted only of a few disjointed remarks.

In the lobby the Prince laid his hand upon Somerfield's arm.

"Sir Charles," he said, "if I were you, I would keep that evening paper in your pocket. Don't let the ladies see it."

Somerfield looked at him in surprise.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"To me personally it is of no consequence," the Prince answered, "but your womenfolk feel these things so keenly, and Mr. Vanderpole is of the same nationality, is he not, as Miss Morse? If you take my advice, you will be sure that they do not see the paper until after they get home this evening."

"Has anything happened to d.i.c.ky?" Somerfield asked quickly.

The Prince's face was impa.s.sive; he seemed not to have heard. Penelope had turned to wait for them.

"The d.u.c.h.ess thinks that we had better all go into the box," she said.

"We have two stalls as well, but as d.i.c.ky is not here there is really room for five. Will you get some programmes, Sir Charles?"

Somerfield stopped for a minute, under pretence of seeking some change, and tore open his paper. The Prince led Penelope down the carpeted way.

"I heard what you and Sir Charles were saying," she declared quietly.

"Please tell me what it is that has happened to d.i.c.ky?"

The Prince's face was grave.

"I am sorry," he replied. "I did not know that our voices would travel so far."

"It was not yours," she said. "It was Sir Charles'. Tell me quickly what it is that has happened?"

"Mr. Vanderpole," the Prince answered, "has met with an accident,--a somewhat serious one, I fear. Perhaps," he added, "it would be as well, after all, to break this to the d.u.c.h.ess. I was forgetting the prejudices of your country. She will doubtless wish that our party should be broken up."

Penelope was suddenly very white. He whispered in her ear.

"Be brave," he said. "It is your part."

She stood still for a moment, and then moved on. His words had had a curious effect upon her. The buzzing in her ears had ceased; there was something to be done--she must do it! She pa.s.sed into the box, the door of which the attendant was holding open.

"d.u.c.h.ess," she said, "I am so sorry, but I am afraid that something has happened to d.i.c.ky. If you do not mind, I am going to ask Sir Charles to take me home."

"But my dear child!" the d.u.c.h.ess exclaimed.

"Miss Morse is quite right," the Prince said quietly. "I think it would be better for her to leave at once. If you will allow me, I will explain to you later."

She left the box without another word, and took Somerfield's arm.

"We two are to go," she murmured. "The Prince will explain to the d.u.c.h.ess."

The Prince closed the box door behind them. He placed a chair for the d.u.c.h.ess so that she was not in view of the house.

"A very sad thing has happened," he said quietly. "Mr. Vanderpole met with an accident in a taxicab this evening. From the latest reports, it seems that he is dead!"

CHAPTER IX. INSPECTOR JACKS SCORES

There followed a few days of pleasurable interest to all Englishmen who travelled in the tube and read their halfpenny papers. A great and enlightened Press had already solved the problem of creating the sensational without the aid of facts. This sudden deluge, therefore, of undoubtedly tragical happenings became almost an embarra.s.sment to them. Black headlines, notes of exclamation, the use of superlative adjectives, scarcely met the case. The murder of Mr. Hamilton Fynes was strange enough. Here was an unknown man, holding a small position in his own country,--a man apparently without friends or social position. He travelled over from America, merely a unit amongst the host of other pa.s.sengers; yet his first action, on arriving at Liverpool, was to make use of privileges which belonged to an altogether different cla.s.s of person, and culminated in his arrival at Euston in a special train with a dagger driven through his heart! Here was material enough for a least a fortnight of sensations and countersensations, of rumored arrests and strange theories. Yet within the s.p.a.ce of twenty-four hours the affair of Mr. Hamilton Fynes had become a small thing, had shrunk almost into insignificance by the side of the other still more dramatic, still more wonderful happening. Somewhere between the Savoy Hotel and Melbourne Square, Kensington, a young American gentleman of great strength, of undoubted position, the nephew of a Minister, and himself secretary to the Amba.s.sador of his country in London, had met with his death in a still more mysterious, still more amazing fas.h.i.+on. He had left the hotel in an ordinary taxicab, which had stopped on the way to pick up no other pa.s.senger. He had left the Savoy alone, and he was discovered in Melbourne Square alone. Yet, somewhere between these two points, notwithstanding the fact that the aggressor must have entered the cab either with or without his consent, Mr. Richard Vanderpole, without a struggle, without any cry sufficiently loud to reach the driver or attract the attention of any pa.s.ser-by, had been strangled to death by a person who had disappeared as though from the face of the earth. The facts seemed almost unbelievable, and yet they were facts. The driver of the taxi knew only that three times during the course of his drive he had been caught in a block and had had to wait for a few seconds--once at the entrance to Trafalgar Square, again at the junction of Haymarket and Pall Mall, and, for a third time, opposite the Hyde Park Hotel. At neither of these halting places had he heard any one enter or leave the taxi. He had heard no summons from his fare, even though a tube, which was in perfect working order, was fixed close to the back of his head.

He had known nothing, in fact, until a policeman had stopped him, having caught a glimpse of the ghastly face inside. There was no evidence which served to throw a single gleam of light upon the affair. Mr. Vanderpole had called at the Savoy Hotel upon a travelling American, who had written to the Emba.s.sy asking for some advice as to introducing American patents into Great Britain and France. He left there to meet his chief, who was dining down in Kensington, with the intention of returning at once to join the d.u.c.h.ess of Devenham's theatre party. He was in no manner of trouble. It was not suggested that any one had any cause for enmity against him. Yet this attack upon him must have been carefully planned and carried out by a person of great strength and wonderful nerve. The newspaper-reading public in London love their thrills, and they had one here which needed no artificial embellishments from the pens of those trained in an atmosphere of imagination. The simple truth was, in itself, horrifying. There was scarcely a man or woman who drove in a taxicab about the west end of London during the next few days without a little thrill of emotion.

The murder of Mr. Richard Vanderpole took place on a Thursday night.

On Monday morning a gentleman of middle age, fas.h.i.+onably but quietly dressed, wearing a flower in his b.u.t.tonhole, patent boots, and a silk hat which he had carefully deposited upon the floor, was sitting closeted with Miss Penelope Morse. It was obvious that that young lady did not altogether appreciate the honor done to her by a visit from so distinguished a person as Inspector Jacks!

"I am sorry," he said, "that you should find my visit in the least offensive, Miss Morse. I have approached you, so far as possible, as an ordinary visitor, and no one connected with your household can have any idea as to my ident.i.ty or the nature of my business. I have done this out of consideration to your feelings. At the same time I have my duty to perform and it must be done."

"What I cannot understand," Penelope said coldly, "is why you should bother me about your duty. When I saw you at the Carlton Hotel, I told you exactly how much I knew of Mr. Hamilton Fynes."

"My dear young lady," Inspector Jacks said, "I will not ask for your sympathy, for I am afraid I should ask in vain; but we are just now, we people at Scotland Yard, up against one of the most extraordinary problems which have ever been put before us. We have had two murders occurring in two days, which have this much, at least, in common--that they have been the work of so accomplished a criminal that at the present moment, although I should not like to tell every one as much, we have not in either case the ghost of a clue."

"That sounds very stupid of you," Penelope remarked, "but I still ask--"

"Don't ask for a minute or two," the Inspector interrupted. "I think I remarked just now that these two crimes had one thing in common, and that was the fact that they had both been perpetrated by a criminal of unusual accomplishments. They also have one other point of similitude."

"What is that?" Penelope asked.

"The victim in both cases was an American," the Inspector said.