The Great Court Scandal Part 29

"We have ascertained that Count Leitolf still writes to the lady, sending her letters to the same address in Brussels as previously. A copy of one letter, which we intercepted, I placed in the Minister's hands. It is couched in terms that leave no doubt that this man loves her, and that she reciprocates his affection."

"You are quite certain that it is not a mere platonic friends.h.i.+p?" asked the King, fixing his eyes upon the spy very earnestly.

"As a man of the world, your Majesty, I do not think there is such a thing as platonic friends.h.i.+p between man and woman."

"That is left to poets and dreamers," remarked the wily Hinckeldeym, with a sneer.

"Besides," the spy continued, "we have carefully watched this man Bourne, and find that when she went to live at Worthing he followed her there. They meet every evening, and go long walks together."

"I have watched them many times, your Majesty," declared Rose Reinherz.

"I have seen him kiss her hand."

"Then, to be frank, you insinuate that this man is her latest lover?"

remarked the King with a dark look upon his face.

"Unfortunately, that is so," the woman replied. "He is with her almost always; and furthermore, after much inquiry and difficulty, we have at last succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng who he really is."

"And who is he?"

"A thief in hiding from the police--one of a clever gang who have committed many robberies of jewels in various cities. This is his photograph--one supplied from London to our own Prefecture of Police in Treysa." And he handed the King an oblong card with two portraits of Guy Bourne, full face and profile, side by side.

His Majesty held it in his hand, and beneath the light gazed upon it for a long time, as though to photograph the features in his memory.

Hinckeldeym watched him covertly, and glanced at the spy approvingly.

"And you say that this man is at Worthing, and in hiding from the police? You allege that he is an intimate friend of my wife's?"

"Stieger says that he is her latest lover," remarked Hinckeldeym. "You have written a full and detailed report. Is not that so?" he asked.

The spy nodded in the affirmative, saying,--

"The fellow is in hiding, together with the leader of the a.s.sociation of thieves, a certain Redmayne, known as `the Mute,' who is wanted by the Hamburg police for the theft of the Baroness Ackermann's jewels. The papers of late have been full of the daring theft."

"Oh! then the police are searching for both men?" exclaimed the King.

"Is there any charge in Germany against this person--Bourne, you called him?"

"One for theft in Cologne, eighteen months ago, and another for jewel robbery at Eugendorf," was the spy's reply.

"Then, Hinckeldeym, make immediate application to the British Government for their arrest and extradition. Stieger will return at once to Worthing and point them out to the English police. It will be the quickest way of crus.h.i.+ng out the--well, the infatuation, we will call it," he added grimly.

"And your Majesty will not apply for a divorce?" asked the Minister in that low, insinuating voice.

"I will reflect, Hinckeldeym," was the King's reply. "But in the meantime see that both these agents are rewarded for their astuteness and loyalty."

And, turning, he dismissed the trio impatiently, without further ceremony.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

SECRET INSTRUCTIONS.

"You did exceedingly well, Stieger. I am much pleased!" declared his Excellency the Minister, when, outside the palace, he caused them both to enter his carriage and was driving them to his own fine house on the opposite side of the capital. "His Majesty is taking a severe revenge,"

he laughed. "This Englishman Bourne will certainly regret having met the Queen. Besides, the fact of her having chosen a low-born criminal lover condemns her a thousandfold in the King's eyes. I, who know him well, know that nothing could cause him such anger as for her to cast her royalty into the mud, as she has done by her friends.h.i.+p with this gaolbird."

"I am pleased to have earned your Excellency's approbation," replied the man. "And I trust that his Majesty's pleasure will mean advancement for me--at your Excellency's discretion, of course."

"To-morrow I shall sign this decree, raising you to the post of functionary of the first cla.s.s, with increased emoluments. And to you,"

he added, turning to the thin-nosed woman, "I shall grant a gratification of five thousand marks. Over an affair of this kind we cannot afford publicity. Therefore say nothing, either of you.

Recollect that in this matter you are not only serving the King, but the whole Ministry and Court. The King must obtain a divorce, and we shall all be grateful to you for the collection of the necessary evidence.

The latter, as I told you some time ago, need not be based on too firm a foundation, for even if she defends the action the mere fact of her alliance with this good-looking criminal will be sufficient to condemn her in the eyes of a jury of Treysa. Therefore return to England and collect the evidence carefully--facts that have foundation--you understand?"

The spy nodded. He understood his Excellency's scandalous suggestion.

He was to manufacture evidence to be used against the Queen.

"You must show that she has lightly transferred her love from Leitolf to this rascal Bourne. The report you have already made is good, but it is not quite complete enough. It must contain such direct charges that her counsel will be unable to bring evidence to deny," declared the fat-faced man--the man who really ruled the Kingdom.

The old monarch had been a hard, level-headed if rather eccentric man, who had never allowed Hinckeldeym to fully reach the height of his ambition; yet now, on the accession of his son, inexperienced in government and of a somewhat weak and vacillating disposition, the crafty President of the Council had quickly risen to be a power as great, if not greater than, the King himself.

He was utterly unscrupulous, as shown by his conversation with Stieger.

He was Claire's bitterest enemy, yet so tactful was he that she had once believed him to be her friend, and had actually consulted him as to her impossible position at Court. Like many other men, he had commenced life as a small advocate in an obscure provincial town, but by dint of ingenious scheming and dishonest double-dealing he had wormed himself into the confidence of the old King, who regarded him as a necessity for the government of the country. His policy was self-advancement at any cost. He betrayed both enemies and friends with equal nonchalance, if they were unfortunate enough to stand in his way. Heinrich Hinckeldeym had never married, as he considered a wife an unnecessary burden, both socially and financially, and as far as was known, he was without a single relative.

At his own splendid mansion, in a severely furnished room, he sat with his two spies, giving them further instructions as to how they were to act in England.

"You will return to-morrow by way of Cologne and Ostend," he said, "and I will at once have the formal requisition for their arrest and extradition made to the British Foreign Office. If this man Bourne is convicted, the prejudice against the Queen will be greater, and she will lose her partisans among the people, who certainly will not uphold her when this latest development becomes known." And his Excellency's fat, evil face relaxed into a grim smile.

Presently he dismissed them, urging them to carry out the mission entrusted to them without scruple, and in the most secret manner possible. Then, when they were gone, he crossed the room to the telephone and asked the Ministers Stuhlmann, Meyer, and Hoepfner--who all lived close by--whether they could come at once, as he desired to consult them. All three responded to the President's call, and in a quarter of an hour they a.s.sembled.

Hinckeldeym, having locked the door and drawn the heavy _portiere_, at once gave his friends a resume of what had taken place that evening, and of the manner in which he had rearoused the King's anger and jealousy.

"Excellent!" declared Stuhlmann, who held the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. "Then I shall at once give Crispendorf orders to receive Stieger and to apply to the British Foreign Office for the arrest of the pair. What are their names? I did not quite catch them."

Hinckeldeym crossed to his writing-table and scribbled a memorandum of the names Bourne and Redmayne, and the offences for which they were wanted.

"They will be tried in Berlin, I suppose?" Stuhlmann remarked.

"My dear friend, it does not matter where they are tried, so long as they are convicted. All we desire to establish is the one fact which will strike the public as outrageous--the Queen has a lover who is a criminal. Having done that, we need no longer fear her return here to Treysa."

"But is not the Leitolf affair quite sufficient?" asked Meyer, a somewhat younger man than the others, who, by favour of Hinckeldeym, now held the office of Minister of Justice.

"The King suspects it is a mere platonic friends.h.i.+p."

"And it really may be after all," remarked Meyer. "In my opinion-- expressed privately to you here--the Queen has not acted as a guilty woman would act. If the scandal were true she would have been more impatient. Besides, the English nurse, Allen, came to me before she left Treysa, and vowed to me that the reports were utterly without foundation. They were lovers, as children--that is all."

Hinckeldeym turned upon him furiously.

"We have nothing to do with your private misgivings. Your duty as Minister is to act with us," he said in a hard, angry voice. "What does it matter if the English nurse is paid by the Queen to whitewash her mistress? You, my dear Meyer, must be the very last person to express disbelief in facts already known. Think of what would happen if this woman returned to Treysa! You and I--and all of us--would be swept out of office and into obscurity. Can we afford to risk that? If you can, I tell you most plainly that I can't. I intend that the King shall obtain a divorce, and that the woman shall never be permitted to cross our frontier again. The day she does, recollect, will mark our downfall."

Meyer, thus reproved by the man to whom he owed his present office, pursed his lips and gave his shoulders a slight shrug. He saw that Hinckeldeym had made up his mind, even though he himself had all along doubted whether the Queen was not an innocent victim of her enemies.

Allen had sought audience of him, and had fearlessly denounced, in no measured terms, the foul lies circulated by the Countess de Trauttenberg. The Englishwoman had declared that her mistress was the victim of a plot, and that although she was well aware of her friendliness with Count Leitolf, yet it was nothing more than friends.h.i.+p. She had admitted watching them very closely in order to ascertain whether what was whispered was really true. But it was not.