The Illustrious Prince Part 6

"Is there any reason why you shouldn't?" he asked.

"That's just what I can't make up my mind about," she told him.

"However, I have brought you out with me expecting to hear something, and I am going to tell you this. That last time he came to England--the time he went to St. Petersburg and twice to Berlin--he came on government business."

The young man looked, for a moment, incredulous.

"Are you sure of that, Pen?" he asked. "It doesn't sound like our people, you know, does it?"

"I am quite sure," she declared confidently. "You are a very youthful diplomat, d.i.c.ky, but even you have probably heard of governments who employ private messengers to carry despatches which for various reasons they don't care to put through their emba.s.sies."

"Why, that's so, of course, over on this side," he agreed. "These European nations are up to all manner of tricks. But I tell you frankly, Pen, I never heard of anything of the sort being done from Was.h.i.+ngton."

"Perhaps not," she answered composedly. "You see, things have developed with us during the last twenty-five years. The old America had only one foreign policy, and that was to hold inviolate the Monroe doctrine.

European or Asiatic complications scarcely even interested her. Those times have pa.s.sed, d.i.c.ky. Cuba and the Philippines were the start of other things. We are being drawn into the maelstrom. In another ten years we shall be there, whether we want to be or not."

The young man was deeply interested.

"Well," he admitted, "there's a good deal in what you say, Penelope. You talk about it all as though you were a diplomat yourself."

"Perhaps I am," she answered calmly. "A stray young woman like myself must have something to occupy her thoughts, you know."

He laughed.

"That's not bad," he a.s.serted, "for a girl whom the New York Herald declared, a few weeks ago, to be one of the most brilliant young women in English society."

She shrugged her shoulders scornfully.

"That's just the sort of thing the New York Herald would say," she remarked. "You see, I have to get a reputation for being smart and saying bright things, or n.o.body would ask me anywhere. Penniless American young women are not too popular over here."

"Marry me, then," he suggested amiably. "I shall have plenty of money some day."

"I'll see about it when you're grown up," she answered. "Just at present, I think we'd better return to the subject of Hamilton Fynes."

Mr. Richard Vanderpole sighed, but seemed not disinclined to follow her suggestion.

"Harvey is a silent man, as you know," he said thoughtfully, "and he keeps everything of importance to himself. At the same time these little matters get about in the shop, of course, and I have never heard of any despatches being brought across from Was.h.i.+ngton except in the usual way.

Presuming that you are right," he added after a moment's pause, "and that this fellow Hamilton Fynes really had something for us, that would account for his being able to get off the boat and securing his special train so easily. No one can imagine where he got the pull."

"It accounts, also," Penelope remarked, "for his murder!"

Her companion started.

"You haven't any idea--" he began.

"Nothing so definite as an idea," she interrupted. "I am not going so far as to say that. I simply know that when a man is practically the secret agent of his government, and is probably carrying despatches of an important nature, that an accident such as he has met with, in a country which is greatly interested in the contents of those despatches, is a somewhat serious thing."

The young man nodded.

"Say," he admitted "you're dead right. The Pacific cruise, and our relations with j.a.pan, seem to have rubbed our friends over here altogether the wrong way. We have irritations enough already to smooth over, without anything of this sort on the carpet."

"I am going to tell you now," she continued, leaning a little towards him, "the real reason why I fetched you out of the club this afternoon and have brought you for this little expedition. The last time I lunched with Mr. Hamilton Fynes was just after his return from Berlin. He intrusted me then with a very important mission. He gave me a letter to deliver to Mr. Blaine Harvey."

"But I don't understand!" he protested. "Why should he give you the letter when he was in London himself?"

"I asked him that question myself, naturally," she answered. "He told me that it was an understood thing that when he was over here on business he was not even to cross the threshold of the Emba.s.sy, or hold any direct communication with any person connected with it. Everything had to be done through a third party, and generally in duplicate. There was another man, for instance, who had a copy of the same letter, but I never came across him or even knew his name."

"Gee whiz!" the young man exclaimed. "You're telling me things, and no mistake! Why this fellow Fynes made a secret service messenger of you!"

Penelope nodded.

"It was all very simple," she said. "The first Mrs. Harvey, who was alive then, was my greatest friend, and I was in and out of the place all the time. Now, perhaps, you can understand the significance of that marconigram from Hamilton Fynes asking me to lunch with him at the Carlton today."

Mr. Richard Vanderpole was sitting bolt upright, gazing steadily ahead.

"I wonder," he said slowly, "what has become of the letter which he was going to give you!"

"One thing is certain," she declared. "It is in the hands of those whose interests would have been affected by its delivery."

"How much of this am I to tell the chief?" the young man asked.

"Every word," Penelope answered. "You see, I am trying to give you a start in your career. What bothers me is an entirely different question."

"What is it?" he asked.

She laid her hand upon his arm.

"How much of it I shall tell to a certain gentleman who calls himself Inspector Jacks!"

CHAPTER VI. MR. COULSON INTERVIEWED

The Lusitania boat specials ran into Euston Station soon after three o'clock in the afternoon. A small company of reporters, and several other men whose profession was not disclosed from their appearance, were on the spot to interview certain of the pa.s.sengers. A young fellow from the office of the Evening Comet was, perhaps, the most successful, as, from the lengthy description which had been telegraphed to him from Liverpool, he was fortunate enough to accost the only person who had been seen speaking to the murdered man upon the voyage.

"This is Mr. Coulson, I believe?" the young man said with conviction, addressing a somewhat stout, gray-headed American, with white moustache, a Homburg hat, and clothes of distinctly transatlantic cut.

That gentlemen regarded his interlocutor with some surprise but without unfriendliness.

"That happens to be my name, sir," he replied. "You have the advantage of me, though. You are not from my old friends Spencer & Miles, are you?"

"Spencer & Miles," the young man repeated thoughtfully.

"Woollen firm in London Wall," Mr. Coulson added. "I know they wanted to see me directly I arrived, and they did say something about sending to the station."

The young man shook his head, and a.s.sumed at the same time his most engaging manner.

"Why, no, sir!" he admitted. "I have no connection with that firm at all. The fact is I am on the staff of an evening paper. A friend of mine in Liverpool--a mutual friend, I believe I may say," he explained--"wired me your description. I understand that you were acquainted with Mr. Hamilton Fynes?"