City of Endless Night Part 23

"Your request was unusual; pardon if I may say, impudent; it seems to imply a lack of appreciation on your part of the honours freely conferred upon you--but I daresay His Majesty did not realize your ignorance of these things. You are very young and you have risen to your high station very quickly from an obscure position."

"And do you think," I asked, "that if you made these facts clear to him, he would relent and grant my request?"

Dr. Boehm looked at me with a penetrating gaze. "It is not my function,"

he said, "to intercede for you. I have only been commissioned to examine carefully the state of your mentality."

I smiled complacently at the psychic expert. "Now, doctor," I said, "you do not mean to tell me that you really think there is anything wrong with my mentality?"

A look of craftiness flashed from Boehm's eyes. "I have given you my diagnosis," he said, "but it may not be final. I have already communicated my first report to His Majesty and he has ordered me to remain with you for some days. If I should alter that opinion too quickly it would discredit me and gain you nothing. You had best be patient, and submit gracefully to further examination and treatment."

"And do you know," I asked, "what the chemical staff is doing about my formulas?"

"That is none of my affair," declared Boehm, emphatically.

There was a vigour in his declaration and a haste with which he began to talk of other matters that gave me a hint that the doctor knew more of the doings of the chemical staff than he cared to admit, but I thought it wise not to press the point.

~3~

The second day of Boehm's stay with me, he unmantled his apparatus and asked me to submit to a further examination. I had not the least conception of the purpose of this apparatus and with some misgivings I lay down on a couch while the psychic expert placed above my eyes a gla.s.s plate, on which, when he had turned on the current, there proceeded a slow rhythmic series of pale lights and shadows. At the doctor's command I fixed my gaze upon the lights, while he, in a monotonous voice, urged me to relax my mind and dismiss all active thought.

How long I stood for this infernal proceeding I do not know. But I recall a realization that I had lost grip on my thoughts and seemed to be floating off into a misty nowhere of unconsciousness. I struggled frantically to regain control of myself; and, for what seemed an eternity, I fought with a horrible nightmare unable to move a muscle or even close my eyelids to shut out that sickening sequence of creeping shadows. Then I saw the doctor's hand reaching slowly toward my face. It seemed to sway in its stealthy movement like the head of a serpent charming a bird, but in my helpless horror I could not ward it off.

At last the snaky fingers touched my eyelids as if to close them, and that touch, light though it was, served to snap the taut film of my helpless brain and I gave a blood-curdling yell and jumped up, knocking over the devilish apparatus and nearly upsetting the doctor.

"Calm yourself," said Boehm, as he attempted to push me again toward the couch. "There is nothing wrong, and you must surrender to the psychic equilibrator so that I can proceed with the examination."

"Examination be d.a.m.ned," I shouted fiercely; "you were trying to hypnotize me with that infernal machine."

Boehm did not reply but calmly proceeded to pick up the apparatus and restore it to its place in the corner, while I paced angrily about the room. He then seated himself and addressed me as I stood against the wall glaring at him. "You are labouring under hallucinations," he said.

"I fear your case is even worse than I thought. But calm yourself. I shall attempt no further examination today."

I resumed a seat but refused to look at him. He did not talk further of my supposed mental state, but proceeded to entertain me with gossip of the Royal Level, and later discussed the novels in the bookcase.

It was difficult to keep up an open war with so charming a conversationalist, but I was thoroughly on my guard. I could now readily see through the whole fraud of my imputed mental derangement. I knew my mind was sound as a schoolboy's, and that this pretence of examination and treatment was only a blind. Evidently the Chemical Staff had failed to work the formulas I had given them and this psychic manipulator had been sent in here to filch the true formulas from my brain with his devilish art. I knew nothing of what progress the Germans might have made with hypnotism, but unless they had gone further than had the outer world, now that I was on my guard, I believed myself to be safe.

But there was yet one danger. I might be trapped in my sleep by an induced somnambulistic conversation. Happily I was fairly well posted on such things and believed that I could guard against that also. But the fear of the thing made me so nervous that I did not sleep all of the following night.

The doctor, evidently a keen observer, must have detected that fact from the sound of my breathing, for the lights were turned out and we slept in the pitchy blackness that only a windowless room can create.

"You did not sleep well," he remarked, as we breakfasted.

But I made light of his solicitous concern, and we pa.s.sed another day in casual conversation.

As the sleeping period drew again near, the doctor said, "I will leave you tonight, for I fear my presence disturbs you because you misinterpret my purpose in observing you."

As the doctor departed, I noted that the mechanism of the hinges and the lock of the door were so perfect that they gave forth no sound. I was very drowsy and soon retired, but before I went to sleep I practised snapping off and on the light from the switch at the side of my bed.

Then I repeated over and over to myself--"I will awake at the first sound of a voice."

This thought ingrained in my subconscious mind proved my salvation. I must have been sleeping some hours. I was dreaming of Marguerite. I saw her standing in an open meadow flooded with sunlight; and heard her voice as if from afar. I walked towards her and as the words grew more distinct I knew the voice was not Marguerite's. Then I awoke.

I did not stir but lay listening. The voice was speaking monotonously and the words I heard were the words of the protium formulas, the false ones I had given the Chemical Staff.

"But these formulas are not correct," purred the voice, "of course, they are not correct. I gave them to the Staff, but they will never know the real ones--Yes, the real ones--What are the real ones? Have I forgotten--? No, I shall never forget. I can repeat them now." Then the voice began again on one of the fake formulas. But when it reached the point where the true formula was different, it paused; evidently the Chemical Staff had found out where the difficulty lay. And so the voice had paused, hoping my sleeping mind would catch up the thread and supply the missing words. But instead my arm shot quickly to the switch. The solicitous Doctor Boehm, flooded with a blaze of light, glared blinkingly as I leaped from the bed.

"Oh, I was asleep all right," I said, "but I awoke the instant I heard you speak, just as I had a.s.sured myself that I would do before I fell asleep. Now what else have you in your bag of tricks?"

"I only came--" began the doctor.

"Yes, you only came," I shouted, "and you knew nothing about the work of the Chemical Staff on my formulas. Now see here, doctor, you had your try and you have failed. Your diagnosis of my mental condition is just as much a fraud as the formulas on which the Chemical Staff have been wasting their time--only it is not so clever. I fooled them and you have not fooled me. Waste no more time, but go back and report to His Majesty that your little tricks have failed."

"I shall do that," said Boehm. "I feared you from the start; your mind is really an extraordinary one. But where," he said, "did you learn how to guard yourself so well against my methods? They are very secret. My art is not known even to physicians."

"It is known to me," I said, "so run along and get your report ready."

The doctor shook my hand with an air of profound respect and took his leave. This time I balanced a chair overhanging the edge of a table so that the opening of the door would push it off, and I lay down and slept soundly.

~4~

I was left alone in my prison until late the next day. Then came a guard who conducted me before His Majesty. None of the Chemical Staff was present. In fact there was no one with the Emperor but a single secretary.

His Majesty smiled cordially. "It was fitting, Herr von Armstadt, for me to order your confinement for your demand was audacious; not that what you asked was a matter of importance, but you should have made the request in writing and privately and not before the Chemical Staff. For that breach of etiquette I had to humiliate you that Royal dignity might be preserved. As for the fact that you kept the formulas secret, none need know that but the Chemical Staff and they will have nothing further to say since you made fools of them." His Majesty laughed.

"As for the request you made, I have decided to grant it. Nor do I blame you for making it. The Princess Marguerite is a very beautiful girl. She is waiting now nearby. I should have sent for her sooner, but it was necessary to make an investigation regarding her birth. The unfortunate Princess Fedora never confessed the father. But I have arranged that, as you shall see."

The Emperor now pressed his signal b.u.t.ton and a door opened and Marguerite was ushered into the room. I started in fear as I saw that she was accompanied by Dr. Zimmern. What calamity of discovery and punishment, I wondered, had my daring move brought to the secret rebel against the rule of the Hohenzollern?

Marguerite stepped swiftly toward me and gave me her hand. The look in her eyes I interpreted as a warning that I was not to recognize Zimmern.

So I appeared the stranger while the secretary introduced us.

"Dr. Zimmern," said His Majesty, "was physician to Princess Fedora at the time of the birth of the Princess Marguerite. She confessed to him the father of her child. It was the Count Rudolph who died unmarried some years ago. There will be no questions raised. Our society will welcome his daughter, for both the Count Rudolph and the Princess Fedora were very popular."

During this speech, Dr. Zimmern sat rigid and stared into s.p.a.ce. Then the secretary produced a doc.u.ment and read a confession to be signed by Zimmern, testifying to these statements of Marguerite's birth.

Zimmern, his features still unmoved, signed the paper and handed it again to the secretary.

His Majesty arose and held out his hand to Marguerite. "I welcome you,"

he said, "to the House of Hohenzollern. We shall do our best to atone for what you have suffered. And to you, Herr von Armstadt, I extend my thanks for bringing us so beautiful a woman. It is my hope that you will win her as a wife, for she will grace well the fortune that your great genius brings to us. But because you have loved her under unfortunate circ.u.mstances I must forbid your marriage for a period of two years.

During that time you will both be free to make acquaintances in Royal Society. Nothing less than this would be fair to either of you, or to other women that may seek your fortune or to other men who may seek the beauty of your princess."

CHAPTER X

A G.o.dDESS WHO IS SUFFERING FROM OBESITY AND A BRAVE MAN WHO IS AFRAID OF THE LAW OF AVERAGES

~1~

It was not till we had reached Marguerite's apartment that Zimmern spoke. Then he and Marguerite both embraced me and cried with joy.