*lj 
 
 
 
 UFFMAN
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 JL*
 
 MY HEART AND STEPHANIE 
 
 OF CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES
 
 WORKS OF 
 
 REGINALD WRIGHT 
 KAUFFMAN 
 
 Miss Frances Baird, Detective $1.25 
 My Heart and Stephanie . . 1.25 
 Jarvis of Harvard . . . 1.50 
 
 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
 New England Building, Boston, Mass.
 
 Stephanie, Countess Routkovsky
 
 MY HEART AND 
 STEPHANIE 
 
 A Novel 
 
 By 
 
 Reginald Wright Kauffman 
 
 Author of "Jarvis of Harvard," " Miss Frances Baird, 
 Detective," etc. 
 
 With two portraits in colour from paintings by 
 
 A. G. Learned 
 
 Boston ^ L. C. Page 
 
 Company fc Mdccccx
 
 Copyright, 1910 
 BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 
 Entered at Stationer s Hall, London 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 First Impression, March, 1910 
 
 Electrotypcd and Printed at 
 THE COLONIAL PRESS 
 C. H. S intends & Co., Boston, U.S.A.
 
 3SZI 
 
 To 
 R. H. K. 
 
 Dear Ruth : Only a few weeks have elapsed since, seated on 
 that shaded boulder beside the lake at Neuchutel, I first read you 
 what was then but the mere skeleton of this little story. I remember, 
 as I know you, too, remember, how the sun, out of a mackerel sky, 
 flung great handfuls of riotous gold upon the blue water; I 
 remember how the light breeze rustled the leaves in the treetops 
 overhead, and I remember (you may be sure that I shall never 
 forget /) the word with which, as I ceased, you bade me complete 
 the task I had so carelessly begun. Only a few weeks and yet, 
 here is the finished narrative! 
 
 What followed that first receding I need not now rehearse. If 
 the dry bones have been given life, it was your breath that inspired 
 them. Stephanie is not my mystery, but ours. We have, in these 
 past few days, stood together in the guilty house at Mountville; 
 have pillaged together the embassy in the Rue de Varenne; and 
 have together fought the conspirators before the secret prison at 
 the end of our dream-stairway. In a word, this book would never 
 have been completed but for your constant encouragement and 
 indefatigable assistance, and, since I know that you will not 
 permit me to say that the story is yours, I am at least resolved that 
 you permit me thus at last to say that it is yours-and-mine. 
 
 R. W. K. 
 Hotel Ritz, Paris. 
 
 2130782
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE VEILED CLIENT i 
 
 II. THE TANGLED WEB 14 
 
 III. HER COUNTERFEIT PRESENTMENT ... 22 
 
 IV. THE MURDER AT MOUNTVILLE .... 35 
 V. THE CRIMSON THUMB 45 
 
 VI. THE MAN WITH THE SCAR .... 56 
 
 VII. BOLFRAS CZIBULKA 69 
 
 VIII. SPILLED MILK 76 
 
 IX. BEHIND THE CURTAIN 88 
 
 X. THE STOLEN BLUEPRINTS 106 
 
 XI. Au L ABBAYE 120 
 
 XII. A LEAN SPY AND A KEEN KNIFE . . . 129 
 
 XIII. THE RAID ON THE EMBASSY .... 146 
 
 XIV. CAUGHT IN THE NET 163 
 
 XV. THE TRUTH ABOUT JAEGER . . . .176 
 
 XVI. SUPPRESSED HISTORY 182 
 
 XVII. THE LOG OF A DEEP - SEAGOING HANSOM . 193 
 
 XVIII. THE VOICE OF THE PRINCE .... 203 
 
 XIX. EXIT THE COLONEL 213 
 
 XX. THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS .... 224
 
 MY HEART AND 
 STEPHANIE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE VEILED CLIENT 
 
 " To everything there is a season, and a time to every 
 purpose under the heaven: 
 
 " A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, 
 and a time to pluck up that which is planted ; 
 
 " A time to kill." 
 
 IT seems impossible that, after one brief year, 
 so little should remain of it as impossible as 
 that the commonplace death of a poverty-stricken 
 stranger in a little Pennsylvania village should 
 contain the seeds of a mystery which imperiled 
 the succession to a crown, sent the spy systems 
 of two great empires buzzing over half the world 
 and at one time threatened to plunge Europe 
 into the greatest war of modern history. And 
 yet, after all, these things have happened, and 
 now, with only a twelvemonth come and gone, 
 
 1
 
 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 this brown-stained bit of newspaper and this 
 single lock of auburn hair are all that are left 
 to remind me of my voluntary part in a matter 
 so momentous; all that remain to recall Colonel 
 Lichtenstein, Bolfras Czibulka, the Baron Ferdi- 
 nand-Salvator Klepsch-Kloth de Hetzendorf 
 and the Countess Routkovsky. 
 
 Is it any marvel that the whole thing should 
 seem, at this last, so like a strange delirium dimly 
 remembered by a weary convalescent? The 
 world has gone on its way unguessing; the ready 
 ear of gossip has caught no echo of our sword- 
 play; the map of Europe is unchanged, and I, 
 looking out from my study window upon the 
 silent April night in this quiet Philadelphia 
 suburb, rub my eyes and begin to wonder vainly 
 whether indeed I ever saw the great jewel gleaming 
 in the death-house at Mount ville; whether I was 
 ever accomplice to Frances Baird, robbing the 
 ambassador s desk in Paris; whether I did not 
 only dream that Stephanie kissed me upon the 
 darkened stairway of the Rat Mart, and whether, 
 in fact, I ever heard the voice of the Mad Prince 
 singing the mattchiche out of tune behind that 
 high-barred window in the Rue Colbert. 
 
 Ending, it would seem, in what was perhaps a 
 tragic nothing, it began in what, at the time, 
 appeared to me but a commonplace in the daily
 
 The Veiled Client 
 
 calendar of my friend, the detective. It was 
 Sunday in the dull season for newspaperdom, 
 and, as the star reporter of the Globe-Express, I 
 had decided upon a long vacation. Fealy, the 
 managing editor, had, only that afternoon, ar 
 ranged the matter with a promptness character 
 istic of the profession. 
 
 " Let you off? " he had asked, without looking 
 up from the A. P. " flimsy " he was reading. 
 " Yes, I can let you off: two weeks with pay and 
 two without. You may start now." 
 
 And so, having gained my desire, and feeling 
 helpless and restless in its possession, I had begun 
 my vacation by remaining in the city, taking 
 Frances Baird to a roof-garden and trying to 
 make her tell me where I ought to go to get that 
 rest and quiet which I so required and which, 
 as the event proved, I was so little destined to 
 obtain. 
 
 We had talked of almost everything, save the 
 matter in hand, and had returned, I remember, 
 to Frances s quarters. The light was low in the 
 apartment that she called her studio, but, as 
 she sat on the big divan under the swinging 
 lamp by the open window, I could see her plainly : 
 her small, white hands clasped over her knee, 
 her lithe, young body relaxed at ease, and her 
 well-shaped head, with its delicate features, its
 
 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 large brown eyes and its wealth of black hair, 
 buried in the cushions. Behind me, smoking 
 in the armchair within a yard of her, the long, 
 cool room stretched away in slow gradations of 
 gloom to complete darkness. Out of the shadows 
 here and there rose the indistinct figure of some 
 strange bit of furniture or bric-a-brac gathered 
 in this or that odd corner of the world, for the 
 most part either a reward for the detective 
 services of my incongruously-demure hostess, or 
 else a portion of the stage-setting in some cele 
 brated crime. Upon the wall opposite, against 
 a Samoan marriage-mat, itself the relic of a 
 world-chase that had ended in the South Pacific, 
 hung now a multifarious collection of weapons, 
 on each of which the imagination detected the 
 crimson stain; the big desk in the corner had 
 once stood in Stanford White s office, and on 
 the chair before it Dreyfus had sat during the 
 sessions of the court martial that had convicted 
 him. And yet, notwithstanding all these grew- 
 some mementoes, of each of which the history 
 was familiar to me, the atmosphere of the room 
 was one of quiet. The rattle of the trolley-cars 
 in the street seemed very far away ; the Summer 
 stars, peeping into our open windows, seemed 
 very close at hand, and the refreshing air that, 
 every minute, stirred the curtains, seemed to
 
 The Veiled Client 
 
 come from some free forest where wrong and 
 vengeance, the offence and the punishment, were 
 alike unknown. 
 
 Curiously enough, too, although my com 
 panion s theme was professional, her tone was 
 so far reminiscent as to lose the effect of imminent 
 reality, and it struck me then, for the thousandth 
 time, as well nigh incredible that a spirit so 
 young and usually so gentle should have played 
 upon life s stage a part so strenuous and bitter. 
 As, however, we grow older, we cease so much 
 to be amazed at what in our boyhood we were 
 wont to speculate upon as strange coincidence, 
 and now, in looking back at that evening, I take 
 it rather as a matter of course rather as an 
 inevitable working-out of some natural law of 
 mental telepathy that Frances Baird should 
 just then have been talking in fine generalities 
 about a system the meshed details of which were 
 so soon to ensnare the two of us. 
 
 " The real history of modern times," she was 
 saying, " never has been and never will be written. 
 Some day, of course, a future historian will 
 spend his life in collecting data and setting forth 
 the events that all the world has at one time 
 known. Our great-grandchildren will read of 
 Alfonso s marriage and Nicholas s coronation, 
 of the War in Manchuria and the Treaty of
 
 6 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 Portsmouth, and will suppose that what all 
 mankind saw of these things was all that there 
 was to be seen. They will not know that the 
 body of a Saxon laundress had to sink into the 
 Rhine before the Bourbon King of Spain might 
 marry the Guelph girl of England. Nobody 
 will tell the story of the three days disappearance 
 of the Russian Emperor; nobody will write 
 the facts of the Muscovite League in Tokio, 
 and not even here in our free America, with its 
 twin blessings of a free press and no personal 
 privacy not even here will anyone give out 
 the news of the stolen dispatch from St. Peters 
 burg that turned the Czar s defeat at arms into 
 his diplomatic victory." 
 
 I had let her run on, in that quiet, low mezzo 
 of hers, without comment or interruption, because 
 I knew her liking for soliloquy and because she 
 was one of the few pretty women from whom 
 one may learn. But now she had touched the 
 tender chord of my reporter s heart. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me," I asked, " that a 
 European spy could pull off such a trick in 
 America, and not one line of it get into the 
 papers? " 
 
 Frances laughed. 
 
 " My dear boy," she assured me, " despite the 
 intervening Atlantic, this country is the happy
 
 The Veiled Client 
 
 hunting-ground for the Continental secret-service 
 agents. The only trouble is that you fellows 
 aren t in a position to get the real news and 
 wouldn t dare to print it if you did get it. No, 
 no; make up your mind to one thing, Sam 
 Burton: when you come to write of any event 
 of international importance, picturesque or awful 
 as the known facts may chance to be, the unknown 
 facts are always a thousand times more vital, a 
 thousand times more intense, a thousand times 
 more dramatic. Diplomacy is the one play in 
 which the best part of the action goes on behind 
 the scenes." 
 
 It was just at that moment just as those 
 words were uttered that the maid entered. 
 
 Frances took the card that lay on the tray. 
 
 " Fraulein Gretchen Meyer," she read, care 
 lessly. " I don t recall the Fraulein, Betty. Did 
 she send any message? " 
 
 Under her white-capped head Betty cherished 
 the wits of a very well-trained young person. 
 The visitor had been told that Miss Baird was 
 engaged, but she had replied that she called on 
 business, that the business was urgent, and that 
 she would be deeply indebted for fifteen minutes 
 of Miss Baird s valuable time. 
 
 " Very well," said Frances; "show her up, 
 Betty. Sammy, you may wait here, if you don t
 
 8 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 mind : there s just one chance in a thousand that 
 this may be the very thing for your vacation." 
 
 A moment later the door opened and Betty, 
 announcing " Fraulein Meyer," had presented 
 the new client. 
 
 In the dim light all that I could at first make 
 out was a tall woman in black, heavily veiled. 
 But, little by little, as I strained my eyes through 
 the semi-darkness and risked some rudeness in 
 the intensity of my gaze, I began to feel about 
 her an air that plainly bespoke something akin to 
 distinction. There was youth in the figure, but 
 it was youth at perfect ease, youth tempered 
 by superb control; there was grace in every 
 line and movement, but it was the grace that is 
 dignity. The visitor s step had been quick, yet 
 firm; her slight bow had been rather what 
 romancers call an " inclination " and the whole 
 poise of her head, the every slight gesture, hinted 
 at once a certain habit of authority. For half a 
 minute she stood there, silent, and then, at last, 
 she spoke in a deep, contralto voice that thrilled 
 me like the first notes of some master instrument. 
 
 " Miss Baird," she said, moving forward to a 
 stiff -backed chair and quite disregarding the easy 
 rocker that Frances had indicated, " I have been 
 told of you by an old acquaintance of mine in 
 Berlin, whose name I need not mention, and I
 
 The Veiled Client 9 
 
 have been informed in the highest quarters that 
 I may depend upon you for the execution of a 
 delicate commission with both skill and discretion. 
 I should like to lay this matter before you with 
 as little delay as possible." 
 
 Her hidden face was turned so frankly toward 
 me that I began to writhe in my place, and cer 
 tainly I should have beaten an abrupt retreat 
 had not Frances quickly made answer: 
 
 " If you will give me the details of your case, 
 Fraulein, I will see what I can do for you. This 
 is my assistant, Mr. Burton, and you may speak 
 quite as freely before him as to me." 
 
 It was a speech that, not without intent, 
 might well have offended a mind made sensitive 
 by the experience of similar wounds, but upon 
 our visitor the words alone effected visible 
 impress: the implication she appeared either 
 to ignore or to fail entirely to observe. Instead 
 she merely nodded a grave assent and straight 
 way seemed to forget me completely. Turning 
 again to Frances, as the detective and I resumed 
 our seats, she began speaking quite as if I had 
 no existence, and telling her story in that splendid 
 voice, without hesitation and with only the 
 slightest trace of a foreign accent. 
 
 " I am," she said, " a native of the Wurtem- 
 burg. My family is an ancient though untitled
 
 10 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 one in the Schwarzwald, but I am its last re 
 maining representative. As a very young girl I 
 was sent by my father to a school in Darmstadt 
 and there met a lieutenant in the army, with whom 
 I was foolish enough to fall desperately in love, 
 as I then called it, although the man was more 
 than twice my age and wholly unworthy of any 
 woman s consideration. Like many another school 
 girl, I wrote him frequent letters more than 
 a hundred in all some of them so worded as 
 to make the writer s identity quite clear to 
 even the most casual reader, and several couched 
 in terms which, innocent as our relations really 
 were, could well, as I now see, be misinterpreted 
 to my lasting disadvantage. At the end, however, 
 of about eighteen months after this affair began, 
 my father died suddenly, and the Lieutenant, 
 learning that I was penniless, ceased his suit. 
 For my part, I returned home under the impres 
 sion that I was broken-hearted, and settled down 
 to a commonplace life upon the small remains of 
 my patrimony." 
 
 " One moment," interrupted Frances, raising 
 her head from the cushions in which she had 
 again buried it when the Fraulein began her 
 narrative. " If you don t mind telling me, how 
 long ago was this? " 
 
 " Ten years," replied our client; " I was then
 
 The Veiled Client 11 
 
 only seventeen. Within a month after my 
 return home," she continued, " I heard that the 
 Lieutenant had deserted from the army and 
 completely disappeared, leaving a great indebted 
 ness behind him. From that time until two 
 months ago I heard no more of him, and soon, 
 quite naturally, forgot him altogether. 
 
 " At that period it chanced that I met and fell 
 in love with a certain fellow-countryman. I do 
 not care to name him, nor do I think that his 
 name would be of any importance to you in the 
 performance of your task. Suffice it that he is 
 a man of so much power and of so high a position 
 in the government of the Empire that, when he 
 proposed for my hand and our betrothal was 
 announced, the newspapers gave much publicity 
 to the fact. Then" 
 
 The speaker paused. For the first time she 
 showed the slightest tokens of embarrassment and 
 her gloved fingers laced and interlaced in her lap. 
 
 Frances, as if echoing her tone, helped her out. 
 Then, I suppose," said Frances, " you heard 
 again from our friend the Lieutenant. Your 
 fiance being rich and powerful, this old admirer 
 saw a chance for a bargain and gave you your 
 choice between paying him a large sum of money 
 and allowing him to send the letters to your 
 betrothed."
 
 12 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 The visitor, with a quick movement, raised her 
 head. 
 
 " How," she asked and yet her tone was 
 even then rather defiant than quavering 
 " how did you learn of this? " 
 
 " I didn t learn of it," Frances replied. " From 
 what you have already told me, it was a foregone 
 conclusion. You got the money? " 
 
 " I got the money," assented Fraulein Meyer. 
 " It was less difficult than I had at first imagined, 
 because the professional money-lenders were, I 
 found, fully cognizant of my approaching mar 
 riage and more than ready to make advances 
 at profitable terms." 
 
 " They keep advised," said Frances dryly. 
 " The Lieutenant," she added, " was, of course, 
 in America? " 
 
 Yes, he was in America, and I could see no 
 way but that I should come to him in person. 
 He was too poor to cross to me, and I knew no 
 one in all Germany whom I could trust with 
 such a mission." 
 
 11 Whereas, of course, if you merely mailed 
 him the money, he would have refused to return 
 the letters and would have held you up for 
 more. I see. Is he a resident of this city? " 
 
 " No, it appears not. Some months ago, with 
 his brother, he rented a small farm on the out-
 
 The Veiled Client 13 
 
 skirts of a little village called Mountville, in what 
 I believe is known as Lancaster County, of this 
 State." 
 
 " And now, Fraulein Meyer, you want me to go 
 there, see this Lieutenant " 
 
 " The name which he has been using is Jaeger - 
 Hans Jaeger." 
 
 ; Thank you. You want me, I say, to see this 
 Lieutenant Jaeger, pay the money and get the 
 letters?" 
 
 The Fraulein rose from her chair and, in the 
 momentary silence that followed, I felt the 
 electric thrill of an approaching climax. 
 
 " No," she finally answered. " I want you 
 to get the letters, but the money you may keep, 
 and the man you will never see. I myself have 
 been to the farm this afternoon, Miss Baird, 
 and I have learned that, at half-past nine o clock 
 this morning, Hans Jaeger was found murdered in 
 his house."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE TANGLED WEB 
 
 " For the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, 
 A woman shall compass a man." 
 
 FRANCES BAIRD let out a low whistle and sat 
 suddenly upright. In the shadow I could see her 
 eyes grow green and luminous, shining like those 
 of a tigress, and I knew that what she had, a 
 minute ago, been inclined to refuse as a common 
 place and uninteresting case, she was now about 
 to seize upon as something really worthy of her 
 remarkable powers. Instantly the whole atmos 
 phere of the room changed its character : Fraulein 
 Meyer ceased to be a mere story-teller and, in 
 effect, went upon the witness-stand for cross- 
 examination. 
 
 " How long have you been in this city, Frau 
 lein? " demanded Frances. 
 
 Our visitor showed no resentment at the new 
 tone of the detective. Her manner remained 
 serenely superior, but she answered readily: 
 
 " I arrived last evening at eleven o clock." 
 
 14
 
 The Tangled Web 15 
 
 " And you crossed on what boat? " 
 
 " The Kaiser Wilhelm II from Bremen." 
 
 Yes that docked in Hoboken last night at 
 7.30. Where are you stopping? " 
 
 " At the Bellevue." 
 
 " I am asking you these questions, Fraulein, 
 because, as you are a stranger in this country 
 and had strong reasons to dislike the dead man 
 
 Frances had now spoken gently, almost hesi 
 tatingly; she was, as I could see, endeavouring 
 to find the easiest road between the truth that 
 must be told and the fears that might be excited. 
 But again she need not have worried. With 
 perfect calm, our remarkable visitor interrupted: 
 
 " I understand you perfectly. That was one 
 reason why I came to you. Fortunately, how 
 ever, I can quite easily account for my where 
 abouts at the time the murder must have been 
 committed." 
 
 " That is good and it is important. In what 
 way will you account for it? " 
 
 The doctor the coroner s physician you 
 call him, do you not ? said, I was told, that, 
 when found, the man had been dead only a short 
 time, but all that time I was either in the train or 
 else in my hired carriage driving to Mountville 
 from the nearest important railway-city, which 
 is Lancaster."
 
 16 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 Covertly I looked at Frances. There was a 
 cold aloofness about the manner in which this 
 veiled woman spoke of the murder of a man 
 whom she had once loved to risk a paradox, 
 there was a sort of impersonal selfishness in her 
 tone which sent an unpleasant shiver through me. 
 
 But Frances was apparently unnoting. 
 
 " Good," she said. " Then you must have left 
 Philadelphia at about seven o clock? " 
 
 The Fraulein nodded. " At that very hour, and 
 I reached Lancaster," she explained, " about 
 two hours later." 
 
 " Had there been any arrest? " 
 
 " None. But the officers are looking for the 
 brother, who has disappeared, but who was last 
 seen, I believe, some time this morning." 
 
 " How was the killing done? " 
 
 " That I do not know. Somebody said it was 
 with a knife. That is all that I can tell you, 
 Miss Baird. You must understand that I made no 
 further inquiries. The nature of my own mission 
 was so delicate that I did not dare to show any 
 great personal interest or attract any undue 
 attention. When I found what had happened, 
 I pretended that I was come to the village on 
 other affairs and that I had stopped at the farm 
 merely out of the same morbid curiosity which 
 drew all the neighbours there."
 
 The Tangled Web 17 
 
 She spread out her hands with a fine gesture 
 of finality. It was as if, having told all she knew, 
 she could dismiss the subject for ever. 
 
 " You made no search, then, for your letters? " 
 
 " How could I? The place was in the possession 
 of the police." 
 
 " I see," said Frances. " And now you want 
 me to get them," she repeated. 
 
 Once again we were, apparently, at the sole 
 point of importance. The murder of her former 
 lover Fraulein Meyer could discuss without any 
 emotion, but the existence of the letters and the 
 need of their recovery brought at least a slight 
 touch of feeling into her tone. 
 
 " You must get them," she said. " If the 
 authorities should now discover them, the whole 
 matter would be printed in your newspapers and 
 I should inevitably be ruined for ever." 
 
 " Have you any idea how or where they are 
 kept?" 
 
 " I know perfectly. One of my gifts to the 
 Lieutenant in my schooldays was a handsome 
 dispatch-box, on the top of which was a gold 
 plate, engraved with the arms : two cross-crosslets 
 over a chevron azure upon a field or, with a lion 
 rampant for crest and the motto, Semper 
 Libertas. It was in this, he wrote me in his last 
 letter, that he kept what he called his keepsakes."
 
 18 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 There was a long pause. Frances rose languidly, 
 took a step or two away from her client and then, 
 turning suddenly, directly faced her. 
 
 " Now, Fraulein," she demanded, " do you 
 know why Jaeger was killed? " 
 
 For just an instant our visitor s self-possession 
 was threatened. She, too, got to her feet, but 
 she did it quickly, and I saw her breast rise and 
 fall tumultuously. 
 
 " Miss Baird," she began, and in her voice 
 I now seemed to feel the lightnings, " do you 
 mean to hint that " 
 
 " I mean just what I say: nothing more. If 
 I am to act for you in this matter, I must know 
 all that you know." 
 
 " Then I assure you that you are already in 
 possession of all the facts that I can give you." 
 
 "Very well very well. And now one thing 
 more, Fraulein: has it not occurred to you that 
 this man s brother might have killed him in 
 order to gain possession of those letters and 
 himself reap the benefit from you? " 
 
 The woman nodded. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " that has occurred to me, 
 and for that reason, if you cannot find the dispatch- 
 box on the premises, I want you to run down 
 this murderer and get them from his person." 
 The two were still standing, face to face, in
 
 The Tangled Web 19 
 
 the middle of the room. Frances took one step 
 backward, reached to the library-table and 
 pressed the button, which flooded the apartment 
 with light. 
 
 " Certainly, Fraulein," she said sweetly. " I 
 shall start at once, and shall at least return 
 sometime to-morrow to report. Can you meet 
 me here at the same hour? " 
 
 The visitor nodded. 
 
 " You will have no cause for complaint against 
 your remuneration," she assured us, and turned 
 to go. 
 
 Just as she did so, Frances dashed past her, 
 as if to open the door for her, and, brushing by, 
 allowed her hand to catch in the Fraulein s veil 
 with so sharp a movement that the drapery was 
 brushed aside. 
 
 It was but a fleeting glimpse that I caught, yet 
 it was one that I shall never forget. The face 
 was as pale as if cut from Parian marble, and 
 as fine of feature as if some supreme artist had 
 sculptured it. The carefully chiseled temples, 
 the delicately arched nose with its sensitive 
 nostrils, the straight brows and the haughty 
 mouth, a vivid line of scarlet in the white face, 
 all stamped themselves for ever on my memory. 
 Under the hat I caught, also, the flash of a wealth 
 of marvellous auburn hair, and, for a moment,
 
 20 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 the gleam of black eyes alight with sudden sus 
 picion and hot hate. 
 
 An instant later, however, and the veil had 
 been replaced : Frances was offering the humblest 
 of apologies for her stupid blunder; the Fraulein 
 was accepting her excuses with suave grace, and, 
 finally, before my breathing had again become 
 regular, the door had closed and left me alone 
 with the detective. 
 
 Frances turned on me with a quiet little laugh 
 the laugh that she always uses when deep in 
 the intoxication of some swift pursuit. 
 
 " Sammy," said she, "there s the phone; call 
 up the Belle vue." 
 
 I got the number, and Frances, after a look 
 into the hall to make sure that it was deserted, 
 began a rapid conversation with the hotel-clerk. 
 
 " Quite right," she said, as she restored the 
 receiver to its hook. " The Fraulein Meyer is 
 stopping at the Belle vue. She arrived there at 
 eleven o clock last night and was there until 
 six-thirty this morning, at which rather remark 
 able hour she went out alone. Her trunks are 
 tagged from Bremen via the Kaiser Wilhelm II. 
 Now then, there is a night train for Lancaster, 
 the nearest possible point to Mountville, in half 
 an hour. I m going and you re going along. 
 What do you think of our client? "
 
 The Tangled Web 21 
 
 I had no doubt in my own mind. 
 
 "I think," said I, "that she is the most 
 beautiful woman I have ever seen." 
 
 Frances, pinning her hat, snorted. 
 
 " I am not so sure about that," she answered, 
 " but I am quite certain on one point: the lady 
 is a queen of liars."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HER COUNTERFEIT PRESENTMENT 
 
 " Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his 
 mouth shall be filled with gravel." 
 
 EVEN at the distance of a year and with the 
 calm advantage of a purely reminiscent mood, I 
 find it difficult to describe the impression which, 
 in that brief visit, our puzzling client had made 
 upon me. I had not talked to her at all. She 
 had, in fact, first plainly shown that she objected 
 to my presence, and had then, when that presence 
 was forced upon her, ended by ignoring me alto 
 gether. Her entire visit, moreover, had consumed 
 scarcely half an hour and, at its end, I had seen 
 only so much of her face as one might get by a 
 sudden bolt of lightning. Young I was, but my 
 ten years experience in newspaper work could 
 hardly, I fancied, have left me impressionable. 
 And yet, in spite of these things or, perhaps, 
 after all, because of them I found myself, 
 in the face of Frances s sudden opposition, 
 impelled to take up the cudgels in our visitor s 
 behalf. 
 
 22
 
 Her Counterfeit Presentment 23 
 
 Nor was the mood wholly unaware of its own 
 fallacy. I remember clearly the hot flush of 
 anger that burned in my cheeks when my friend 
 thus coolly branded as a liar the woman who had 
 only just left us. I remember the quick retort 
 that leaped to my lips. But I remember also 
 the rush of doubt that crowded fast upon its 
 heels, the keen pang of my wounded pride, still 
 bleeding from the supercilious thrusts so lately 
 suffered, and the immediate sense of relief when 
 Frances s hurried orders cut short the protest 
 I was about to interpose and set me busy with 
 preparations for our instant departure. 
 
 " Are you ready to start at once? " she de 
 manded. 
 
 I reminded her that my work had for some years 
 been of a character which made it necessary for 
 me always to keep a suit-case packed for at 
 least a week s journey. 
 
 " Very well, then," she rattled. " I don t 
 suppose that we can make Mount ville to-night, 
 but we ought to have no trouble in getting to 
 Lancaster so that we could drive out, or take a 
 trolley, bright and early in the morning. I 
 have only one or two things to toss into a bag, 
 and, while I am at that, you look up a time-table ; 
 phone to the station, reserving a compartment; 
 ring for a messenger-boy, and send him to your
 
 24 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 rooms for your luggage, and then call a taxi. 
 By that time I shall be as ready as you are." 
 
 And by that time she was. From the file of 
 railroad-folders, of which she kept always the 
 latest issues in a special pigeon-hole of her desk, 
 I found that, although Mountville was not on 
 the main passenger-line and was seemingly im 
 possible of nocturnal access, we could, neverthe 
 less, in forty minutes, get a train that would pass 
 through Lancaster. It was an express and was 
 not supposed to stop there, but the telephone 
 put me in touch, at his club, with a railway 
 official for whom I had once done a large news 
 paper favour, and he promised to issue the neces 
 sary orders that would let us off at the little city 
 we were seeking to reach. This difficulty cleared 
 away, I was so relieved that I did not much mind 
 the curt word from the station that told me we 
 should have to ride in a day-coach, and, as all 
 my other commissions were successfully executed, 
 I was rather well pleased with my abilities in 
 the r61e of courier when, at last and with not a 
 moment to spare, we settled ourselves for our 
 two hours ride and the express pulled out of 
 the West Philadelphia Station. 
 
 But even then, when my fatuous mood had 
 had so much time and cause to clear away, I 
 was still, I found, a little bitter at Frances s
 
 Her Counterfeit Presentment 25 
 
 denunciation of the Fraulein, and, at any rate, 
 very curious to discover its reason. My detective, 
 however, was also unchanged; her original 
 opinion still remained, and her report of it was 
 still more assertive than argumentative. 
 
 "If you please," she replied to my query in a 
 caustic whisper, " you will not talk quite so 
 loudly in a crowded railroad coach." 
 
 " But why," I persisted, though in a lower 
 voice, " why do you feel so sure about the 
 woman s character when you have scarcely 
 exchanged a thousand words with her? " 
 
 Frances shrugged her little shoulders. 
 
 " I know the Fraulein is a liar," she said, 
 " because I know a lie when I hear one. It s my 
 business to be acquainted with each of the 
 thousand and three brands." 
 
 " But this woman," I protested, "is no low 
 type. Anybody could see that." 
 
 " I didn t say that she was a low type; I said 
 she was a liar." 
 
 The report from the hotel people tends to 
 confirm her in her alibi for the time of the mur 
 der." 
 
 " My dear Sammy, you do so confuse the issues! 
 No one accused her of assassination. Do you 
 suppose I should ever have allowed her to leave 
 my rooms unshadowed if I had for an instant
 
 26 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 thought that she was even an accomplice to 
 that killing? " 
 
 " Then, if you believe what she told us about 
 the killing, what part of her story is it that you 
 doubt? " 
 
 " Every other word of it. And I don t doubt it : 
 I deny it. That yarn is a direct insult to the 
 intelligence of everyone it s told to. It hasn t a 
 probable feature. In the first place, the woman 
 isn t a day over twenty-five, although she cer 
 tainly has seen a lot in that time and although 
 it takes a mighty motive to make a woman lie 
 on the wrong side of her age. In the second place, 
 scheming European lieutenants don t commit 
 themselves to young girls without making sure 
 of the girls fortunes by any of the many safe, 
 easy and sure means. In the third place, no 
 man in his senses would expect a Continental 
 woman to cross the Atlantic alone on such a 
 mission as she describes, and no woman of any 
 race, who possessed the calmness and resources 
 which our friend displayed, would wait until 
 she got here to employ a detective. Last of all, 
 Sammy, did you happen to notice her ac 
 cent? " 
 
 " Well," I said, " I noticed that she had an 
 accent." 
 
 " Good. In that case you must also have
 
 Her Counterfeit Presentment 27 
 
 noticed that, whatever her nationality may be, 
 it certainly is not German." 
 
 Of course I had not noticed anything of the 
 sort, and of course I was now thoroughly angry. 
 However, I knew from experience that anger 
 with Frances Baird is never a paying proposition, 
 and so I bought a copy of an illustrated magazine 
 from the newsboy who was passing down the 
 aisle, and, by the vile light of the railway-coach, 
 began sulkily to run through its pages, Frances, 
 in the meantime, quite coolly, and as comfortably 
 as might be, settling herself for a nap. 
 
 I was turning the leaves rapidly and, my mind 
 intent upon the problem of our curious quest, 
 was giving small heed to the pictured pages 
 that passed in quick parade before my eyes, but 
 suddenly that disassociated observation which, 
 at such times, seems to stand as a sentinel at 
 the outpost of our consciousness, sounded a 
 quick alarm. Just what it had noted I was not 
 told, but something, I was immediately aware 
 something on a recently turned page had 
 possessed an importance which would compel 
 me, now with every faculty alert, to return to it. 
 
 I did so at once, and, three pages back, found 
 the illustration that had aroused me. It was one 
 of a half-dozen reproductions of portraits from 
 the brush of Leinbach; it was endorsed merely:
 
 28 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " Portrait of a Lady," and its original was un 
 questionably the Fraulein Meyer. 
 
 I looked at Frances. She was fast asleep, and 
 I was tempted to learn more of the picture before 
 awakening her. The portraits were illustrations 
 for an article on the work of the German artist, 
 and I was reasonably sure that the subjects 
 themselves were Teutons. Nevertheless, I re 
 solved to consult the text, find what reference I 
 could to this particular likeness and then, with 
 my case fully made out, confront my companion 
 with a complete controversion of her theories. 
 
 This, however, was not so easy. I first ran 
 through the article hurriedly; then read it word 
 for word ; but nowhere as is so often annoy ingly 
 the case could I discover a word about the 
 particular picture in which I was interested. All 
 the others, it seemed, were criticized at con 
 siderable length, but this one had, apparently, 
 been added by the art-editor merely for its own 
 sake and quite without a word of explanation. 
 
 Not that there was any question about its 
 identity. No one who had once seen even for a 
 fleeting second the Fraulein could have enter 
 tained a momentary doubt. The pose, oddly 
 enough, was almost precisely that of our visitor 
 as she had stood upon entering Frances s studio: 
 the tall, graceful figure, the black draperies,
 
 Her Counterfeit Presentment 29 
 
 the very hat, and the haughty poise of the head 
 were alone enough to convince me even had the 
 face, with its finely cut temples, delicately 
 arched nose, straight brows and proud mouth 
 even had these been veiled as they were when 
 the Fraulein first appeared before us. 
 
 I leaned over and shook Frances almost roughly. 
 In accord with long professional habit, she was 
 at once clean awake. 
 
 :< There," said I, shoving the open magazine 
 under her nose; " what do you make of that? " 
 
 For the second time that evening Frances 
 whistled. 
 
 " It s our client right enough," she assented. 
 " Have you read the article? " 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " What does it say of the lady? " 
 
 " Not one word, unfortunately. It s merely a 
 criticism of Leinbach s work. But that makes 
 no difference. It proves you were wrong anyhow, 
 for Leinbach was a German 
 
 The light of interest died instantly in Frances s 
 brown eyes. 
 
 " And, therefore," she ironically echoed, " he 
 painted nothing but his own countrymen. Shade 
 of Van Dyck! I suppose he lived on his fees 
 from portraits of penniless beauties of the Schwarz- 
 wald! Oh, let me go to sleep again! "
 
 30 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 She actually snuggled back once more, pre 
 pared to drop into the immediate slumber that 
 she could always command, and I was sufficiently 
 annoyed at her taunts to feel some secret satis 
 faction when the brakeman, thrusting his head 
 in at the door, frustrated her plans by announcing 
 that, if we were to force the express to stop at 
 Lancaster, we must prepare for a speedy exit. 
 
 But our suspended hostilities were not destined 
 to speedy resumption. The night was already 
 so late as to be almost morning, and we were 
 both glad to find our rooms ready at the hotel 
 so glad that I for my part, awoke at seven-thirty 
 with many protestations and a warm temper. 
 
 Frances, however, came down to breakfast in 
 excellent spirits. When once she was within 
 easy reach of the scene of a crime, her mood was 
 always one of energetic enthusiasm and her 
 manner honey-sweet. To-day she seemed com 
 pletely to have forgotten our foolish quarrel of 
 the evening previous; could not be sufficiently 
 solicitous over my brief slumber, and had herself, 
 it appeared, been up quite half an hour, arranging 
 for a carriage to drive us out to Mountville, five 
 miles away. 
 
 "And what about the murder? " I asked. 
 " How do the gossips treat the affair? " 
 
 " I haven t inquired of a soul and I haven t
 
 Her Counterfeit Presentment 31 
 
 glanced at a paper," she answered smiling. 
 " Ever since I listened to the talk of a sewing- 
 circle and arrested the wrong man in the North- 
 brook counterfeiting case, I have forsworn 
 gossips, and ever since I met you, I have mis 
 trusted newspapers." 
 
 I bowed my acknowledgments. 
 
 " Nevertheless," I began, " it might at least be 
 interesting " 
 
 " Before the day is over," she interrupted, " I 
 expect to have quite enough to interest me, 
 without beginning on nothings at half after seven 
 in the morning. Besides, there s no chance left. 
 There s the carriage now, and the driver is so 
 much of a Pennsylvania-German that he doesn t 
 speak a word of English." 
 
 We climbed aboard our conveyance forthwith 
 and in a moment more were bowling out of town 
 and along the turnpike. 
 
 In spite of the grewsome errand on which we 
 were bound, the drive was pleasant. Trolley- 
 cars banged by us at full speed ; neat, prosperous 
 farm-houses nodded in the morning glow ; broad, 
 rich fields rolled away upon either hand, now 
 dotted with sleek cattle and now fresh with the 
 new green of a prospective crop. 
 
 I took in deep draughts of the pure, fresh air. 
 
 " By Jove," I exclaimed, " this is something
 
 32 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 like vacation! What a morning it is, to be 
 sure." 
 
 Frances s brown eyes were dreaming on the 
 far horizon. 
 
 " Lovely," she ecstatically murmured. " It is 
 just such a morning as the one we arrested 
 Horace Bechtel for the Brumbaugh murder." 
 
 There is nothing to be done with a spirit so 
 narrowed, and I was too wise to attempt any 
 thing. Instead, I consoled myself with the con 
 gratulation that neither my profession nor a 
 disappointment in love had hardened me against 
 the joys of the world, and I proceeded to make 
 the best of the drive until a notable increase in 
 the number of houses along the roadside warned 
 me that we must be approaching Mount ville. 
 
 To ask our driver, I knew would be useless. 
 My one or two attempts to engage that cryptic 
 individual in conversation had brought forth only 
 monosyllabic replies in a tongue that I did not 
 understand, and so, when we saw a couple of 
 men approaching down the road, I leaned for 
 ward, took the reins from the horny fist of our 
 conductor and myself brought the horses to a 
 standstill. 
 
 Frances leaped to the ground and faced the 
 newcomers. 
 
 " Good morning," she began blithely.
 
 Her Counterfeit Presentment 33 
 
 They nodded. 
 
 " Is this Mountville? " she continued. 
 
 " Yes," replied the foremost a tall man and 
 bearded. " Who was you lookin fer? " 
 
 " Nobody in particular," Frances assured him. 
 " In fact, it was only a place we were after 
 not a person. We were curious to see the Jaeger 
 farm." 
 
 I looked for some sign of awe at the mention 
 of that now tragic name, but the stolid faces of 
 the country-folk remained unaltered. Apparently 
 it took something more than violent death to 
 move them to any facial betrayal of emotion. 
 
 " The Jaeger farm? " repeated the spokesman. 
 
 Frances assented. 
 
 Beyond us, about a quarter of a mile from the 
 turnpike, stood, quite alone, a little two-story 
 house, sadly in need of repair. From this house 
 a clay road led to the very point at which we had 
 stopped our carriage, and, down the road, half 
 way to us, two other men were now approaching. 
 It was toward the dilapidated building that our 
 new acquaintance waved his hand. 
 
 "That there s the Jaeger farm," he said, still 
 quite unmoved. :< Turn off here: the road goes 
 by the door yet." 
 
 Even Frances, calmly as she herself was wont 
 to sup on horrors, began to feel the chill that I
 
 34 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 was experiencing at this unneighbourly stolidity 
 to fear, it seemed, that she was, in some way, 
 misunderstood. 
 
 " You are sure? " she persisted. 
 
 But the rustic showed immediate signs of 
 offence at her doubts, which he was quick to 
 misconstrue into bantering. 
 
 " Ef you knowed besser as I did," he mumbled, 
 "you didn t have fer to ast oncet." And he 
 was about to move on when Frances put out 
 her slim, strong hand and detained him. 
 
 " One moment," she said. " I really didn t 
 mean to offend you, and I beg your pardon if 
 I have offended. The name isn t unusual and I 
 thought I might have struck the wrong family. 
 I mean the farm of Hans Jaeger and Wilhelm 
 his brother." 
 
 " Well," growled the rustic, " that s what I m 
 givin you yet. That there s their place, and," 
 he continued, nodding his head toward the other 
 two men, who were by this time within a hundred 
 yards of us up the dirt road, " ef you want to 
 talk to Hans an Wilhelm Jaeger themselves, 
 why, this is them now."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MURDER AT MOUNTVILLE 
 " These men die the common death of all men." 
 
 I HAVE observed Frances Baird in a wide 
 variety of situations, any one of which was 
 calculated to shake the nerve of the bravest 
 man. I have watched her hold up three of the 
 most dangerous train-robbers with never so much 
 as the flutter of an eyelid; often have I known 
 her to face the several forms of death with serenity, 
 and once at least it was in the case of a certain 
 South American President she met the threat 
 of torture with a smile. Against about every 
 form of surprise, against almost every unexpected 
 turn of fortune, I have wagered her proof. But 
 now when she had come merrily forth to 
 investigate a murder and was informed calmly 
 that the murdered man was walking toward 
 her in the company of his assassin now, for 
 the first time in our long friendship, she gave 
 way to sheer amazement. Her brown eyes first 
 stared at the speaker and then grew suddenly 
 
 35
 
 36 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 fixed upon the approaching figures he had so 
 astoundingly indicated; her jaw dropped as if 
 she herself had been fatally smitten, and her 
 hand slipped limply from the farmer s arm. 
 
 It was this, I think, that saved the situation. 
 For the rustic, thus released, began to amble 
 disgruntedly away, and the movement brought 
 my friend back to her usual quick-thinking self. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me," she however asked, 
 with one last attempt to satisfy her preconceived 
 notions of the situation, - "do you mean to 
 tell me that these two men coming this way are 
 Hans and Wilhelm Jaeger? " 
 
 " That s how they call themselves," the farmer 
 answered. 
 
 " Then," said Frances, " there has been no . 
 But never mind," she hurriedly concluded. ; I 
 am very much obliged to you and and 
 good day." With which words she literally 
 pushed the farmers on their way and turned a 
 shamed face to me. " Well," she laughed, " can 
 you beat that for a puzzle? " 
 
 I was able at first only to shake my head. If 
 Frances had been amazed, I was frankly dum- 
 founded. It seemed certain that we were all the 
 figments of some weird nightmare. 
 
 " What does it mean? " she asked, more of 
 herself than of me, and, putting her small, white
 
 The Murder at Mountville 37 
 
 hands to her forehead, " What does it mean? " 
 she repeated. 
 
 " All I can make out," I ruefully confessed, 
 " is that someone with a low sense of humour 
 has put up a very poor joke on us." 
 
 Frances laughed. 
 
 " Good! " she cried. " Now will you accept 
 my judgment of the beautiful Fraulein s veracity? 
 But there s more in this than a stupid hoax," 
 she ran on softly, "a good deal more." 
 
 " Just what is in it? " I wondered. 
 
 She turned from me quickly. 
 
 " I propose to find out," she said, " and I may 
 as well begin with our friends, the Jaegers. Here 
 they are." 
 
 There they were indeed, so close upon us that 
 they might well have heard her concluding words 
 and now so much more than ever a matter of 
 interest that I studied them with no small amount 
 of care. 
 
 The brothers were of about an age neither 
 could have been much over forty or under forty- 
 eight and, roughly, they presented a sort of 
 general resemblance one to the other. Both 
 were of good height and bore themselves as 
 if to account for at least a portion of the Fraulein s 
 story in a fashion that unmistakably bespoke 
 a military training. Both were keen-eyed men
 
 38 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 of rather distinguished features, bearded and 
 tanned from their farm-life, but none the less 
 plainly unused to their present occupation. 
 Yet in manner there was between them a vast 
 difference at once manifest. The one I suppose 
 he was the elder had something in his sullen 
 silence that, though approaching dignity, was 
 curiously like the yokel who had just left us, 
 whereas the other, to whom Frances addressed 
 her remarks, was so ready-tongued and yet so 
 rambling in his replies that I began soon to 
 suspect him of some serious mental failing. 
 
 You are the brothers Jaeger? " inquired 
 Frances, putting on her best smile. 
 
 The younger man thrice bobbed his head in 
 ready confirmation and grinned with a leer that 
 struck me as about the most unpleasant sub 
 stitute for a smile that I had ever seen. 
 
 We are the brothers Jaeger, Madame," he 
 cackled; "it is so that our father named 
 us." 
 
 His voice was a shrill piping and his construction 
 was new to me, but I noted with satisfaction 
 that his accent, although stronger, was precisely 
 the counterpart of the Fraulein s Meyer s. 
 
 " And you live " - Frances pointed inquiringly 
 to the dilapidated house on the hill "up 
 there?"
 
 The Murder at Mountville 39 
 
 " Yes, Madame, it is there that we have lived 
 these six weeks." 
 
 " Hum," said Frances, as if in dry protest 
 against that ingratiating grin; "own the place, 
 do you? " 
 
 " Ah, no, we are tenant-farmers only." 
 
 " Farmers by occupation, I suppose? " 
 
 " By occupation, Madame." 
 
 " And training? " she urged him. 
 
 " Even so. What a beautiful farm it was! 
 We left it, thinking that we do better in America. 
 But we do only worse. It was in Saxony. - 
 One month and a half have we been here. Over 
 there we were born. It was our father s and 
 his father s before him. What was it that 
 Madame intended to do us the honour to command 
 of us? " 
 
 He leaned forward as he added the last, still 
 leering, and rubbing his hands which were 
 not the hands of a born farmer together in a 
 manner disgustingly humble. But I noticed 
 that his little rat-like eyes were first looking over 
 Frances with considerable care and were next 
 turned upon me and the carriage for an examina 
 tion equally thorough. 
 
 The detective, however, was quite as observant 
 as I and fully as sharp as her questioner. It 
 was true that, having seen all that he chose to
 
 40 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 see of us, he had, by his inquiry, brought us up 
 with a round turn, but it was also true that 
 Frances, satisfied that nothing was here to be 
 learned, was fully prepared to end the inter 
 view. 
 
 You are very kind," she answered graciously, 
 " but I am afraid that you can do nothing. My 
 friend here, Mr. Burton, was thinking of pur 
 chasing a farm, and the man to whom you just 
 now saw us talking said that yours was probably 
 for sale." 
 
 Jaeger s grin broadened and, broadening, waxed 
 uncannily suspicious. 
 
 " Strange," he said; " I had been sure that our 
 neighbours they all know we did but rent our 
 little spot of ground. I wish you a good day." 
 
 And, with a quick movement, he had turned 
 his back upon us, thrust his hand into his brother s 
 armpit and was leading away that individual, 
 who had all this while been glowering in silence 
 from under the shadow of his deep-rimmed hat. 
 
 Frances leaped into the carriage. 
 
 " Lancaster," she whispered to the stolid 
 coachman, who had passed through both inter 
 views without a sign of interest and who now 
 turned the horses heads toward home. 
 
 :< Well," she continued, settling into the seat 
 beside me, " what do you make of it now? "
 
 The Murder at Mountville 41 
 
 " Oh, come," I said, " that s your business. 
 I m only a reporter." 
 
 But the detective maintained her suavity. 
 
 " You re right," she admitted; " but just now 
 I m a failure in my own profession." 
 
 " I don t wonder," I admitted, mollified by 
 her frankness. " The only thing that I can say 
 for certain is that your Dutch friend is crazy." 
 
 " Not quite crazy, Sammy. He may get there 
 in time, but just now he is only extremely sly. 
 He was altogether too sharp for me, at any rate, 
 and I am inclined to think that he had got more 
 out of me by looking me over than I got out of 
 him with all my fool questions. I wonder 
 what it is that he s trying to hide. Somehow or 
 other, I shall discover that." 
 
 " It s all one to me," I said. " I don t like to 
 be beaten by a woman and a lunatic. But what 
 end are you going to start work from Phila 
 delphia or Mountville? " 
 
 " I ve not yet decided. Of course, the handsome 
 Fraulein won t show up at my quarters to-night." 
 
 " Not unless she s crazy, too." 
 
 " But, on the other hand, we must get hold 
 of her somehow before she leaves the city, 
 Sammy." 
 
 " Yes, we must if she hasn t left it already." 
 
 " You re right again! " she cried. " We must
 
 42 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 phone the Bellevue as soon as we reach Lan 
 caster. What time is it? " 
 
 I consulted my watch. 
 
 " Half -past nine," I said. 
 
 " Just the hour at which, yesterday, the murder 
 was supposed to have occurred. Oh, well, we ll 
 telephone as soon as we reach our hotel; get a 
 bite of lunch, and then run back to Philadelphia." 
 
 The first portions of the programme were carried 
 out according to schedule, but the news from 
 the Bellevue was not comforting. 
 
 " No," came the clerk s far-away answer to my 
 rapid inquiries by long-distance telephone to the 
 Philadelphia hotel; " the Fraulein Meyer has left 
 here." 
 
 " Great Scott, Herbert! " I thundered, as if my 
 ability to be heard at a distance of seventy miles 
 were dependent upon my lung-power. This 
 is Burton. Yes, Burton of the Globe-Express. - 
 It s a big beat for me, if I can land it, so open 
 up, old man, and tell me when she got out." 
 
 " At seven o clock," came the clerk s answer. 
 
 " This morning? " I bellowed, forgetting that 
 it could have been at no other time. 
 
 1 Yes, this morning." 
 
 "Gone for good?" 
 
 "Paid her bill." 
 
 "Took her baggage?"
 
 The Murder at Mountville 43 
 
 " Yes, left in a four-wheeler for Broad Street 
 Station. Wait a minute." - And then, after 
 I had stamped about the booth for twice that 
 time, my ear glued to the receiver: " The head 
 porter says it was checked to New York. That s 
 all we know. Sorry. Good-bye! " 
 
 Ruefully I reported to Frances. 
 
 "It s my fault," she declared. " Feeling as I 
 did about that woman, I should have had her 
 shadowed. Now the best we can do is to wait 
 here and eat our lunch we can t get a train 
 back to Philadelphia before that, anyhow." 
 
 " You mean to go back? " I asked in amaze 
 ment. 
 
 " I mean to go forward," she answered, "but 
 there is obviously nothing to be gained from the 
 Jaegers just yet. No, I must trace your 
 Fraulein to New York. Just what her game is 
 I don t know, but I certainly shall know before 
 I am done with it." 
 
 And so we remained in Lancaster until noon, 
 ate our luncheon and proceeded leisurely train- 
 ward. In fact, the train was just rushing into 
 the station when Frances, who had left me to 
 go to the news-stand, laid sudden hold of my 
 shoulder and swung me right face about with 
 such violence that my suit-case dropped from 
 my hand and almost pitched under the wheels.
 
 44 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " Look out! " I called with some feeling. " Do 
 you want me to go to the hospital instead of to 
 Philadelphia? " 
 
 " I want you to stay right here," said Frances. 
 " I want you to read that." 
 
 Without another word she thrust toward me 
 the early edition of a local afternoon paper, and 
 pointed to a scare-head on the first page: 
 
 MURDER AT MOUNTVILLE 
 
 Hans Jaeger, a German Farmer, Found Stabbed 
 to Death. 
 
 His Brother Wilhelm Missing. 
 
 CRIME DISCOVERED AT 9.30 A. M. 
 
 " Just twenty-four hours late," said Frances.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CRIMSON THUMB 
 
 " In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man s 
 hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the 
 plaster of the wall." 
 
 DON T ask me what I said. I don t know what 
 it was; I am only sure that, in any case, it was 
 some piece of superlative stupidity. What com 
 ment could, after all, be adequate? We had 
 been sent up here to investigate a murder which, 
 we were told, had occurred at a certain hour of 
 one day, and now, after seeing the victim and 
 speaking with him, we were informed that the 
 assassination had occurred at the same hour 
 on the day following at not much more than 
 fifteen minutes after we had left the predestined 
 scene ! 
 
 The first words I remember uttering, as I 
 began to emerge from the emotional anaesthetic, 
 were the feeble ones: 
 
 " Do you believe it? " 
 
 " Of course," Frances laughed. " I am past 
 
 45
 
 46 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 amazement now, but I can sympathize with 
 you." 
 
 " Then what," I piped, still helplessly, " do 
 you propose doing? " 
 
 " First of all, I propose going right back to 
 the Jaeger farm. There s no time to lose, unless 
 we want to let the police ruin everything. We ll 
 just charter one of these deep-sea-going station 
 cabs." 
 
 We did so at once, and, before the Philadelphia 
 train had left the station, we were again on our 
 way to Mountville, Frances leaning back among 
 the cushions with the fixed stare that meant 
 mental concentration and I doing my best, in 
 spite of the constant jolting of our vehicle, to 
 decipher such brief account of the tragedy as 
 the newspaper had had time to rush into type 
 for its first edition. 
 
 " At half-past nine this morning," I read, 
 " there was discovered on a little tenant-farm 
 near Mountville one of the most foul murders 
 that have ever been recorded in the criminal 
 history of Lancaster County. The victim was 
 Hans Jaeger, a recent German emigrant, who 
 rented the farm from the Haefner estate six 
 weeks ago; the killing was done with a common 
 carving-knife, and the police are looking for 
 Wilhelm Jaeger, a brother of the deceased, who
 
 The Crimson Thumb 47 
 
 shared the farm with Hans, and who was seen 
 in his company as late as 9.15 A. M., but who 
 is now missing. 
 
 " The murder was discovered at the hour 
 above stated by Lawrence Beitman, a collector 
 in the employ of the Haefner estate, who called 
 at the farm in the regular course of his business. 
 Receiving no reply, Beitman pushed open the 
 door, which proved to be unlocked, and pro 
 ceeded to the kitchen where, on the floor, he 
 found the bloody body of Jaeger, with the carving- 
 knife still protruding from the wound in his 
 breast. Beitman says that the corpse was still 
 warm. He gave the alarm, and the Coroner 
 is now expected to arrive at any moment to 
 take charge of the case. 
 
 " County Detective Doomble, who at once 
 went to the scene of the crime, says that he 
 found the house ransacked from top to bottom, 
 but that a large amount of money, which was 
 kept loose in a bureau-drawer in a second-floor 
 bed-room occupied by the dead man, had evi 
 dently been overlooked by the murderer. The 
 detective adds that he regards as very suspicious 
 the absence of Wilhelm Jaeger, the brother, whom 
 Henry Schlicter, a neighbouring farmer, saw 
 with Hans, in conversation with a couple of 
 strangers. These strangers were in a carriage
 
 48 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 on the Columbia pike about fifteen minutes 
 before the discovery of the crime. They were, 
 Schlicter says, a young man and a young woman, 
 who were driving from the direction of Lancaster 
 and who inquired persistently of Schlicter the 
 way to the Jaeger farm. Doomble thinks that, 
 if found, they may be able to throw some interest 
 ing light on the affair, and may even be proved 
 to be accessories to the crime. 
 
 " Not much is known hereabouts concerning 
 the Jaeger brothers. They lived entirely alone 
 and had very little intercourse with their neigh 
 bours." 
 
 ; The local authorities," I remarked, as I 
 ended my reading, " will probably give us a 
 warm welcome, and lock us up." 
 
 Frances shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 Ours would be a suspicious story if we 
 told it," she admitted, seriously, " but I have 
 always acted upon the theory that the only 
 useful truth was the truth that sounded true. 
 You had better leave the local authorities to 
 me." 
 
 The event proved that she was quite right, for, 
 as we climbed from our cab before the scene of 
 the murder, we were confronted by Doomble 
 himself a fat, little man with a bristling, black 
 moustache and a brave, blue eye to whom
 
 The Crimson Thumb 49 
 
 Frances straightway lucidly explained her position. 
 She was, she began by admitting, the woman in 
 the carriage referred to by the newspaper. She 
 had that morning driven here because she had 
 been told in Lancaster that the Jaegers might 
 give her board and lodging on just such a quiet 
 farm as she required for her vacation, but, not 
 liking the appearance of the place, she had at 
 once returned to the county-seat. Seeing, 
 however, that her presence was connected with 
 the murder, she had now returned and, if she 
 could be of any assistance, would be only too 
 happy as Frances Baird, Detective to place 
 herself under Mr, Doomble s orders. 
 
 The mention of her name resolved our diffi 
 culties. Doomble, unlike the rural policeman of 
 tradition, was a keen officer and a level-headed 
 man; he knew her, by reputation of course, and, 
 far from being either suspicious or jealous, wel 
 comed heartily her proffered aid. Under his 
 guidance, we passed the little group of village 
 loafers, who were halted at the humble doorway, 
 and, while Doomble was engaged upon some 
 minor errand, were permitted to go alone into 
 the house that shrouded a mystery so much 
 stranger than was dreamed of by any of that 
 curious crowd outside, and so much deeper than, 
 at that time, even we ourselves suspected.
 
 50 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 There were only three rooms on the ground 
 floor, and but two of these had been used by the 
 late inhabitants. What had doubtless been 
 designed for a parlour was as bare as the day 
 the builders left it, but the dining-room behind 
 this was comfortably enough furnished, in a 
 simple way, with the table ready set for the 
 noon meal and places laid for two persons. From 
 this a door, standing ajar, opened into the kitchen 
 and through that we stepped into the presence 
 of the dead. Some lesser business, as we later 
 learned, had detained the Coroner and we now 
 came upon the scene precisely as it had appeared 
 to the frightened rent-collector a few hours before. 
 
 The room was in a considerable state of dis 
 order. The doors of the cupboards, which lined 
 two of the walls, had been flung open and much 
 of their scanty supply of pots, kettles and crockery 
 tossed upon the floor. The drawer of the kitchen- 
 table had been torn out and its contents dumped 
 upon the floor in a heap. In two places the 
 boarding had been ripped up, and the bricks 
 before the old-fashioned range had been similarly 
 disturbed. Amid all this, ominously stark, the 
 matted head just beneath the window and the 
 booted feet pointing stiffly ceilingward, lay the 
 dead man the silent brother of our morning 
 interview, silent now for ever.
 
 The Crimson Thumb 51 
 
 We should, perhaps, have shown the pair 
 of us something more of horror than we did 
 should, it may be, have paid that tribute of awe 
 which convention expects of the average man 
 and woman in the presence of convention s 
 greatest conventionality, death. But the hard 
 fact is that both Frances and I were more or 
 less accustomed to tragedy. For several years 
 such scenes as this had been almost a part of 
 our daily work, and so, although I do not think 
 we are either of us uncommonly callous, we are 
 both of us uncommonly practical. My comment 
 was, therefore, not so emotional as businesslike. 
 
 "So," I said; "the quiet one was Hans. I 
 had been wondering." 
 
 " Yes," confessed Frances, " so had I, but I was 
 ashamed to own up to you that I had been too 
 disconcerted this morning to find out from them 
 which was which." 
 
 " We might have guessed. This is a madman s 
 work, and I told you Wilhelm was mad." 
 
 " Is it a madman s work? I m not so sure. Do 
 madmen have strange ladies forewarn detectives 
 and announce their crime a day before its com 
 mission? " 
 
 She was tiptoeing gingerly about the room as 
 she talked, equally intent upon observing every 
 thing and disturbing nothing.
 
 52 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " But perhaps," I ventured, as I carefully fol 
 lowed her, " perhaps he did write some crazy 
 letter to a relative, who planned to have us on 
 the ground ahead of time, without disclosing 
 her secret to us, and so prevent the murder." 
 
 Frances chuckled, and I own that her laughter 
 struck even my none too sensitive ears as rather 
 grim. 
 
 " That wild theory," she said, " has so many 
 holes in it that I can t shoot at it without my 
 bullet s going through one of them. No, it was 
 brother Wilhelm, sane enough to hang for it." 
 
 " How about the rent-man? " I inquired. 
 
 As I spoke she dived to the floor and picked up 
 a double handful of notes and coin. 
 
 " There s your answer," she replied. " Besides, 
 though there was probably some struggle, most 
 of all this tearing-up seems to have been done 
 after the stabbing; it was done by someone that 
 knew Hans had something of value concealed 
 about the place and the something that the 
 assassin was after was clearly not money. In 
 fact " - and again she pounced upon some 
 object on the floor "the murderer has left 
 his autograph behind him." 
 
 She was standing erect now, her dark cheeks 
 flushed and her brown eyes gleaming. In her 
 hand she held a rumpled sheet of newspaper -
 
 The Crimson Thumb 53 
 
 such a sheet as country-folk spread upon closet- 
 shelves and, clearly imprinted on that sheet, 
 was the telltale impression of a crimson thumb. 
 
 " There you are! " she almost shouted " the 
 one mark that can never be forged! " 
 
 I bent toward it to examine it. My friend was 
 right. The imprint was that of a left thumb 
 and was as clear and definite as if it had been 
 the careful artist s proof of some prized etching. 
 
 Frances ran to the side of the dead man and, 
 in his own blood, made, on the margin of the 
 paper, quick imprints of the victim s thumbs: 
 there was not the slightest resemblance to the 
 original stain. 
 
 That s hanging evidence," she continued, as 
 she rapidly labelled the various impressions with 
 her gold-cased pencil and, folding the paper, 
 handed it into my keeping. " He had no sooner 
 stabbed the man than he ran to the cupboard in 
 his wild search for the reward of his crime. The 
 first thing he touched was this paper, which he 
 jerked from one of the shelves, and on it he left 
 that stain. He might more safely have left us 
 his card! " 
 
 Realizing that Doomble might at any moment 
 come after us, we had been working quickly, and 
 now, when only five minutes had been devoted 
 to the room, Frances bent over the dead man.
 
 54 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " Yes," she said, as her deft fingers ran along 
 the victim s chest; "the newspaper was right 
 about this. Here s the weapon: a common 
 carving-knife, driven deep he must have 
 dropped like a log. It was a left-handed blow - 
 remember that, Sammy for it slopes from the 
 body s right to left, and of course the assassin was 
 facing him, so Wilhelm must be a left-handed 
 gentleman, just as that thumb-mark indicates. 
 The clothing is ordinary enough pockets empty 
 except for a knife, a ball of twine and some small 
 change. But here Her voice went suddenly 
 calm and softer. " Lend me your knife," she 
 concluded. 
 
 The very change in her tone warned me that 
 the climax of our investigation was at hand. 
 Hastily I gave her the horn-handled weapon that 
 I always carried with me. She gripped it quickly, 
 ripped open the dead man s shirt, pulled over 
 his head something that gleamed in the afternoon 
 sunlight, and then, before I could stoop beside 
 her, was holding out to me the object of her quest. 
 
 I took it cautiously in my hands and looked at 
 it stupidly. It was a broad, red riband of rusty 
 silk, but at the point of the bight was suspended 
 a blue and gold enamelled flint-stone, with con 
 ventionalized flames spreading from it. On its 
 obverse was engraved the motto:
 
 The Crimson Thumb 55 
 
 " Pretium laborum non vile," 
 
 and below hung, suspended by its middle, the 
 figure of a lamb. 
 
 " It s I suppose it s some kind of a foreign 
 decoration? " I stammered. 
 
 " It is the jewel," said Prances, " of the Order 
 of the Golden Fleece."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MAN WITH ^HE SCAR 
 " If a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away ? " 
 
 THERE it lay, in her pink palm, the index - 
 could we but read it to our whole mystery. 
 About us was the poverty-stricken farmhouse 
 kitchen, the floor littered with sordid debris, 
 the cupboards open and bare, and, close at hand, 
 the dead man, unwitting or uncaring, with the 
 knife deep in his breast and in his staring eyes 
 no sign or token to aid us toward his vengeance. 
 
 I looked at Frances, I fear, somewhat blankly. 
 In a general way, I knew, of course, that the 
 Toison d Or was one of the proudest orders in 
 Europe, but of more than that I now frankly 
 confessed my ignorance. 
 
 " Then it s time you learned," my companion 
 dryly commented. " All I can tell you now is 
 that there are only sixty-odd men in the world 
 who may lawfully possess it, and that I myself 
 have never seen it worn by anybody that was 
 not of royal blood. There are two branches of 
 the order one in Spain and one in Austria, 
 
 66
 
 The Man with the Scar 57 
 
 but this jewel, I am sure, is of the Austrian 
 brand. Unless he stole it, that will give you 
 some idea of the importance, in his own country, 
 of the man who, over here, seems to have seen 
 fit to call himself plain Hans Jaeger; and, if 
 you could guess why he carried it about with 
 him, and why he hid it from sight, you would 
 have solved the riddle. For my own part, I m 
 going to give up guessing for a while. Instead, 
 I m going to take a look over Jaeger s other 
 belongings, with an eye to Fraulein Meyer s 
 dispatch-box. Unless Wilhelm was really mad, 
 we sha n t find it, but, in the meantime, you take 
 care of this bauble and say nothing about it to 
 any of the police. I suspect that it will be useful 
 in a little journey I m contemplating." 
 
 With that she hurried me off upstairs and we 
 began the search that she had correctly prophesied 
 would be fruitless. Save that which, apparently, 
 had once been occupied by Wilhelm, all the rooms 
 in the house were in just such disorder as that 
 reigning in the kitchen. In the apartment where 
 the dead man had evidently slept, the bureau s 
 contents were strewn recklessly about ; the heavy 
 trunk upturned ; the flooring virtually demolished, 
 and even the mattress and pillows ripped open. 
 But among all this devastation we found neither 
 the box that Gretchen Meyer had described, nor
 
 58 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 yet, thorough as we tried to be, one scrap of 
 paper to complement the remarkable discoveries 
 made below stairs, not one bit of evidence to 
 throw a single, fresh ray of light upon the 
 identity of either the dead man or his slayer. 
 
 It was quite six o clock when we abandoned 
 the investigation. The Coroner had come and 
 gone; so had the undertaker. Doomble had 
 twice interrupted us and Frances had twice lied 
 to him about her opinion of the case. And so, 
 at last, discouraged, but not defeated, she faced 
 me in the deepening twilight. 
 
 " Sammy," she said, " there s nothing more to 
 be learned here, but I think that we have found 
 enough to make it reasonably certain that, 
 whatever else it is, this isn t exactly a common or 
 garden variety of back-alley crime. Unless I m 
 all wrong, the endeavour to run it out is going to 
 be long, but never tedious it is going to be 
 delicate and dangerous and I believe it is 
 going to bring us up against some of the most 
 powerful forces in the world. Luckily, I happen 
 to have plenty of money to spare just now, and 
 some time, and, also, luckily, you too are in the 
 same boat. Do you want to come along? " 
 
 I seized her hand. 
 
 " Of course I do! " I declared. 
 
 " Don t be too cock-sure. I warn you that
 
 The Man with the Scar 59 
 
 we shall probably run several good chances of 
 being killed by persons whom our ghosts would 
 never have the satisfaction of seeing swing for 
 it. So, if you really feel like dropping out, here s 
 your chance." 
 
 " Not much," I answered. You may con 
 sider me enlisted for three years or during the 
 war. " 
 
 " Very well," said Frances quietly, as if this 
 ended the matter; " in that case, we ll walk over 
 to the local railroad-station." 
 
 "Good. Are we going to Philadelphia?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "I don t know," said my companion; "but 
 I shouldn t be surprised if we were going to 
 Europe." 
 
 And, indeed, Europe was, as it turned out, our 
 ultimate destination. Several precious days we 
 lost in starting days and nights spent in 
 hunting out any possible clew and following, 
 for some short way, half a dozen false ones. 
 Frances discovered that Doomble had been in 
 quiring at all the stations along the line, for a 
 passenger answering Wilhelm Jaeger s description 
 inquiring and finding nothing. But she, not 
 satisfied with this, felt it incumbent upon her 
 to trace the progress of every stranger whatsoever, 
 who had left Mountville, or either of the towns
 
 60 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 immediately to the east or west of it, within such 
 time of the murder as to render him a legitimate 
 object of suspicion, and this she kept up until I 
 began to abandon all hope. Now and then, to 
 be sure, we were lured away by some more or 
 less promising will-o -the-wisp. Once it was in 
 one direction and then in another. But at no 
 time, until the seventh day, did we come upon 
 anything that gave us continued promise. 
 
 We were talking, I remember, precisely a 
 week after the murder, to the ticket-agent at 
 Rhorerstown, a man of more than ordinary 
 intelligence, who, though he did not wholly 
 guess our purpose, at least did not seek to thwart 
 it by trying to think on his own account. 
 
 " This is a wery small place, you see," he said, 
 " and I know most of the persons as goes by the 
 train, but I remember there was two, on that 
 there day you speak about, as I didn t never 
 see before." 
 
 "At what time?" clicked Frances, her dry 
 business-voice sounding like the cocking of a 
 revolver. 
 
 " It must have been about half-pas ten, or 
 ten forty-five, fer they bought tickets fer the 
 eleven o clock." 
 
 " Just time to get over from Mountville," I 
 mentally commented.
 
 The Man with the Scar 61 
 
 Frances went on : 
 
 " They came together? " 
 
 " Yes, ma am, they come togezzer." 
 
 " And a pair of them," I continued to myself, 
 " would alone explain how so much ransacking 
 could have been done in so short a time." 
 
 " What did they look like? " persisted Frances. 
 
 " Oh, like most city folk." 
 
 " Yes yes, but were they short or tall? " 
 
 " Well, the one as bought the tickets, he 
 wasn t what you ld call noways short." 
 
 " Tall, eh? " 
 
 " No, nor yet what you ld call tall." 
 
 " Have a beard or moustache? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " What kind of hair? " 
 
 " Kind of brown and sort of black." 
 
 "And his eyes?" 
 
 " I didn t rightly notice his eyes, but I think 
 they were brown, though they might a been 
 blue." 
 
 I began to laugh, but Frances checked me with 
 a frown. 
 
 " Didn t you notice anything particular about 
 him?" she almost pleaded; "anything that 
 makes you remember him? " 
 
 " Oh, yes I did that, miss." 
 
 " Well, and what was it? "
 
 62 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 
 
 Why, I thought he was wery well dressed fer 
 a butcher." 
 
 " For a butcher? How did you know that he 
 was a butcher? " 
 
 " I didn t jest know it yet, but when he reached 
 out his hand fer the change, I seen they was caked 
 blood, like, under the fingernails, an I thought 
 perhaps - 
 
 Yes, yes, of course you did. It was his left 
 hand, wasn t it? " 
 
 " His left? Well, now, he wouldn t be likely 
 to use his left, would he? " 
 
 " He would if he were left-handed. But 
 never mind. What sort of tickets did he 
 buy? " 
 
 " One to New York and one to Washington. 
 He give the Washington one to his friend." 
 
 " And what sort of looking man was his friend ? " 
 
 " Him I ld know anywheres. He was a wery 
 little man, but awful stocky. He had his hat 
 off, an was wipin his forehead with a silk hand 
 kerchief, an I noticed his hair (it was black) was 
 all bristly, like, an right in his forehead he had 
 a scar just the shape of a three-quarters moon." 
 
 This was, perhaps, something, and it was, at 
 any rate, all we could get from the ticket-seller. 
 We subjected him to a full half-hour more of 
 cross-examination; we harried him and worried
 
 The Man with the Scar 63 
 
 him, but we left him with no more information 
 than that. He had seen only what he had at 
 first described. And yet, doubtful as this clew 
 appeared, and slight as the description certainly 
 was, it proved to be the thin thread which led 
 to the end of our quest. The way thither, as 
 Frances had foretold and as you will see, was 
 both dangerous and difficult, but, when we at 
 last reached it, we did so solely because of what 
 the man at Rhorerstown had told us. 
 
 We boarded, that very day, the train that the 
 strangers had taken the previous week, and we 
 found that the conductor of its single Pullman 
 car remembered the pair of whom we were in 
 search. 
 
 " I run on through to New York," he explained, 
 " and the one of them went with me, but the 
 other left at Philadelphia just after the lady 
 joined the party." 
 
 " What lady was that? " I demanded. 
 
 But, even as I spoke, I guessed his answer : 
 
 " A tall, dignified young lady a young lady 
 in black. She wore a veil when she came aboard, 
 but she raised it after we got under way and I 
 noticed that she was very beautiful, with eyes 
 as black as her clothes and lots of red hair." 
 
 So she didn t go at seven! 
 
 Frances slipped the man a five-dollar bill.
 
 64 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " Anything more? " she inquired. 
 
 Yes," replied the conductor; "at Jersey 
 City the lady asked me whether it would be 
 quicker for them to go to Hoboken from the 
 Jersey City side, or whether they had better cross 
 to New York that s all I remember." 
 
 " Thank you," said Frances; "it is quite 
 enough." 
 
 " But is it? " I wondered, as the conductor left 
 us. 
 
 What more could you ask? " said Frances. 
 They were going to Hoboken there are 
 only two big trans-Atlantic lines that have docks 
 there: the Hamburg-American and the North 
 German Lloyd. It was a Monday, and as the 
 German Lloyd boats generally sail early Tuesday 
 morning, and, moreover, as your beautiful Frau- 
 lein came here by that line, all we have to do is 
 to ask a few questions of the pier-hands to find 
 out whether two such people as our friends 
 didn t arrive there a week ago at the same houf 
 at which we shall arrive, and whether they 
 didn t go aboard the boat." 
 
 And that was all that we did have to do. Two 
 employees knew nothing, but the third knew just 
 about what we wanted. The two had arrived, hav 
 ing engaged adjoining staterooms on the Kaiser 
 Wilhelm II by telegraph that morning from
 
 The Man with the Scar 65 
 
 Philadelphia. What was more, upon alighting at 
 the pier, they had gone at once to their cabins 
 and had remained there until the boat set sail 
 at five-thirty the next morning. 
 
 " The man had no baggage at all except a 
 hand-bag," our informant concluded, "but the 
 lady s trunks came later and I remember they 
 still had the Wilhelm II labels on em, from 
 Bremen." 
 
 We went to the office. 
 
 " She won t have changed her name," said 
 Frances, " because it might make talk, since she 
 was returning by the same boat that she came 
 on." 
 
 And again Frances was right, for the company s 
 books showed us that Fraulein Gretchen Meyer 
 had occupied Stateroom No. 103; that No. 104 
 had been occupied by Wolfgang Johrnblatz, 
 and that both these persons had embarked for 
 Cherbourg, at which port the boat had touched 
 at noon of the day before we made our inquiries. 
 
 "Wolfgang Johrnblatz Wilhelm Jaeger," 
 muttered Frances as we came out into the street. 
 " Too late to cable," she went on, and I admit 
 that, at the thought of the Fraulein, my heart 
 was glad to hear it. " But I dare say," the 
 detective continued, " that it wouldn t have done 
 to cable anyhow, because this is no case for
 
 66 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 open methods. Come back for a minute ; I 
 am going to engage two staterooms on the 
 Kronprinz, which sails from here to-morrow." 
 
 That is the way that things happened when 
 you were with Frances Baird, detective, and I 
 knew better than to ask questions. Unless she 
 chanced to be in one of her soliloquizing moods, 
 it was useless to attempt inquiry, and when she 
 was convinced that a problem could be solved 
 by so simple a process as an immediate trans- 
 Atlantic voyage, she would start upon that 
 voyage without further warning. 
 
 So it was, at any rate, in the present instance. 
 There were a few hours of fevered shopping; a 
 silent dinner at Mouquin s; a cab-ride to the 
 Hoboken ferry, and then I tumbled into my 
 berth, tired out from my week s hard work and 
 yet too excited and too puzzled for speedy sleep. 
 
 All night long I tossed and turned, beating my 
 brains, until they were sore, against the riddle 
 that confronted us. If the Fraulein were a 
 party to the murder, why had she ever come to 
 us? If she were not a party to it, why had she 
 met Wilhelm Jaeger and gone abroad with him? 
 Why, in any event, had she given us word of the 
 crime on the night before it was committed? 
 Where was the dispatch-box, and what had been 
 in it? Who was the third man with the ticket
 
 The Man with the Scar 67 
 
 to Washington? And to what strange identity, 
 hidden under ground in the potter s field at 
 Mountville, did I hold a key in the shape of that 
 jewel of the Golden Fleece, which was now 
 resting secure beneath my pillow? I would 
 torture my wits until I would doze away from 
 sheer exhaustion, but, even then, to sleep was 
 only to fall dreaming of dead men and kings, of 
 mad murderers and beautiful red-headed women 
 in black, with dark, seductive eyes and lips like 
 a wound was only to follow the mystery around 
 its dizzy, vicious circle, plunging about like a 
 rat in a bucket, and to start into wakefulness 
 whenever a step sounded outside my stateroom, 
 now in a thrill at the memory of the Fraulein s 
 face, and now in a cold sweat at the vision of 
 Wilhelm Jaeger s little brown eyes boring into 
 mine, his clawlike hands extended, his bloody 
 thumb about to hook itself upon my throat. 
 
 Twice I got up, and, stepping into the passage, 
 looked at the transom to Frances s state-room, 
 but, both times, the glass was dark and the 
 detective evidently quietly asleep. Then, at 
 last, toward four in the morning, I myself passed 
 completely into slumber, and did not awake 
 until the key-bugle sounded its reveille. 
 
 Half .an hour later, pleased to find that we were 
 already out of sight of land, I was taking a
 
 68 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 precarious bit of exercise along the promenade 
 deck, preparatory to breakfast. It was still 
 somewhat early; the sea was gray and troubled 
 and the wind high, so that I was not surprised 
 to find that the sole companion of my stroll was 
 a little, but thick-set, broad-shouldered man, 
 who tramped, undisturbed, ahead of me. It did 
 not even startle me when, as he turned under the 
 bridge, a sudden puff of wind blew his steamer- 
 cap directly into my extended hand. 
 
 But what did amaze me what renewed the 
 mazed terrors of the night and sent a chill of fear 
 down my spine was the fact that, as he wheeled 
 about, with a smile and a word of thanks, to 
 recover his fugitive headgear, I noticed a bristle 
 of erect, black hair upon his bullet-head and, just 
 between the cold eyes, a scar the shape of a three- 
 quarters moon.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BOLFRAS CZIBULKA 
 
 " And he said, Wherefore doth my lord thus pursue 
 after his servant? for what have I done? or what evil is 
 in mine hand ? " 
 
 EVERY man, I suppose, has, on occasion, idly 
 speculated as to what his sensations would be if 
 he awakened from a nightmare only to find that 
 the clawed and winged beast that, in his dreams, 
 had just been gnawing out his heart or clutch 
 ing tighter and tighter his helpless throat until 
 the life-link between head and body had snapped 
 was now, in the waking world of fact, descend 
 ing upon him from the far corner of the bed-room. 
 I, at any rate, have so amused myself and 
 now I had the not-entirely-pleasant presentation 
 of that problem in the smiling countenance of the 
 man with the scar. 
 
 First of all, of course, stupefying amazement 
 began by rooting me, agape, to the tossing deck, 
 and ended by urging me to run away. Next, 
 however, the fever of the chase took command of
 
 70 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 my brain and ordered me to attack this apparition, 
 pinion him and summon assistance for the arrest 
 of a murderer. But finally, though I cannot claim 
 a flood tide of common caution, the habit of 
 convention, which, in the long run, rules us all, 
 instinctively asserted itself, and, before the other 
 emotions had left my consciousness clear 
 before, in fact, I could have held myself tense 
 for more than one hesitating second, although 
 to my wondering brain it seemed the motionless 
 silence of minutes, I observed my own hand 
 returning the cap and heard my own voice 
 accompanying this action with a familiar in 
 anity. 
 
 " It is a very rough day," I stammered, my 
 eyes still glued on the livid scar. 
 
 Amazed as I was at my own course, I was even 
 more surprised at the stranger s. If an escaping 
 criminal could ever be given a hint of danger, 
 surely this man must have read warning in my 
 almost staggering face, but, far from any uneasi 
 ness, far from ending our conversation with the 
 single sufficient word, he at once fell into step 
 beside me, apparently glad of companionship 
 and certainly in full possession of his nerves. 
 
 Then, for a time, of course, I actually doubted 
 whether this stocky individual, in spite of his 
 bristling, black hair and three-quarters moon of a
 
 Bolfras Czibulka 71 
 
 scar, could be the man we sought, but, not 
 having gone quite mad, I resolved, at any rate, 
 to make the most of his want of guile, and so, 
 in seeking to match his frankness, at last con 
 firmed my original suspicions. 
 
 " This is, perhaps, your first trip? " he was 
 asking me in almost perfect English, as we came 
 to a stop at the rail that shut us from the second 
 cabin. 
 
 " Oh, no," I replied. " I am a newspaper man 
 and had to cross twice before in the course of 
 business, although then I went only to Eng 
 land." 
 
 " So? " he responded, his broad smile showing 
 two rows of firm, flashing teeth. " A journalist? 
 It has been my profession rather to shun the 
 reporters." 
 
 I had imagined as much, but I scarcely expected 
 him to acknowledge it. 
 
 " What profession is that? " I asked, trying to 
 laugh with some degree of naturalness. 
 
 " Diplomacy," was his surprising answer. 
 " Oh," he continued, spreading out his strong 
 hands, palms outward, " only in a ve-ary small 
 way, sar." 
 
 We turned to go forward, the wind proving 
 rather too strong at the rail, and I was glad to 
 get the momentary pause for a stroke of quick
 
 72 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 thought. Then I decided that his statement 
 assumed some further inquiry. 
 
 " I used to know Washington," said I. "It 
 was there, I suppose, that you were stationed? " 
 
 " Yas. I haf been attache there at the Austrian 
 embassy." 
 
 I think at that I almost stopped short. It was, 
 to be sure, possible, that the world might contain 
 two men, or even a score, that answered the 
 description furnished by the Rhorerstown ticket- 
 agent, so far, indeed, as that curious scar, but, 
 when I remembered the Austrian decoration that 
 we had found in the death-house at Mountville, 
 it seemed well nigh impossible for an Austrian 
 of that ilk, fresh from America and, by his own 
 admission, in touch with the world of secret 
 politics and intrigues, to be any other than the 
 man we wanted. 
 
 I let my gaze seek the tossing horizon while I 
 sought, almost vainly, to dig from the labyrinth 
 of my brain some biographical facts that I might 
 give him in order to invite imitation. 
 
 " Ah, yes," I ultimately murmured. " Well, 
 I can t say that I cared a great deal for Washing 
 ton, for I began my work there and so had the 
 hardest time of my life in that city." 
 
 Again my companion smiled, his teeth flash 
 ing.
 
 Bolfras Czibulka 73 
 
 " I confess," he said, " that I can share your 
 dislike, Mr. " 
 
 He raised his eyebrows questioningly and I 
 supplied : 
 
 " Burton Samuel Burton." 
 
 " I thank you, Mr. Burton. My own name is 
 Bolfras Czibulka. As I was saying, I also care 
 not much for Washington, greatly as I like what 
 little else of your charming country I have seen. 
 But then, I too was the beginner there. I go 
 now to a new post to Paris, where I have just 
 been appointed the secretary private to the 
 Baron de Hetzendorf, our ambassador. Perhaps, 
 now, you also are going to a promotion: perhaps 
 you are to be London correspondent for your 
 newspaper? " 
 
 I did some quick thinking. 
 
 " No," I replied; " my cousin, Miss Baird " 
 
 "Miss Baird?" 
 
 There was no token of recognition in the 
 repetition of the name, which, since it would be 
 on the passenger-list, I had seen no harm in 
 giving to him. 
 
 " Yes," I continued, " my cousin, Miss Baird. 
 We too are going to Paris, but it is no promotion 
 only a pleasure-trip." 
 
 " Ah, for that, Mr. Burton, you could go to no 
 better city in the world, although as a residence
 
 74 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 you would not like it much more than Washington 
 and not so well as your own New York." 
 
 I don t know why it should be, but it is always 
 flattering to a reporter to be thought the member 
 of a New York staff. Still, I have always rebelled 
 against the convention, and so I now corrected 
 my new acquaintance. 
 
 " But New York," I said truthfully, " is not 
 my home. I am connected with the Philadelphia 
 Globe-Express." 
 
 As I spoke these words, we had reached the 
 forward entrance to the saloon, and the Austrian 
 
 or Czeck, as I concluded he must be now 
 flung open the door to it. 
 
 Something in his movement caught my instant 
 attention, but for an appreciable moment it 
 could not satisfy my clamouring mind. Then of 
 a sudden, realization came to me: the hand with 
 which he had opened that door, and the hand which 
 he had previously extended for the return of his 
 runaway cap, had been the left. 
 
 " So? " he was calmly saying, while my eyes 
 remained rivetted on the hand that had opened 
 the door. " I regret that I know not your city. 
 
 But I think that I hear the breakfast-call aft 
 and the wind sharpens one s appetite. I trust, 
 sar, that I shall have the honour of a larger 
 acquaintance with you."
 
 Bolfras Czibulka 75 
 
 Whereupon he left me and he was still 
 smiling. 
 
 Somehow, I didn t like his smile: there was 
 too much of it.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SPILLED MILK 
 
 " Lest the avenger of the blood pursue the slayer, while 
 his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, 
 and slay him." 
 
 WITH Czibulka out of earshot, there was just 
 one thing for me to do, and I did it without 
 delay. The man with the scar could not have 
 seated himself at table below us before I had 
 Frances walking the deck that he and I had so 
 recently left. It took me about half a minute 
 to tell her all that I had learned, and then I 
 leaned upon the rail and awaited her surprise 
 and commendation. 
 
 The surprise, however, was destined to be all 
 my own, and the commendation was nowhere 
 in evidence. 
 
 " You re sure about the scar? " she demanded. 
 
 " Positive." 
 
 " And the man is short and stocky? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Bristling black hair? " 
 
 " Just so." 
 
 76
 
 Spilled Milk 77 
 
 " Hum. We should have known that it was 
 quite on the cards he ld be coming along on about 
 this boat." 
 
 Whereupon she put me through the Frances- 
 Baird form of catechism on the conversation 
 between the Austrian and myself. Then, satisfied 
 that she knew all that had passed between us, 
 she bent beside me and looked down in silence 
 at the churning waves. 
 
 "Well," I at last demanded, "what do you 
 think of it?" 
 
 " I haven t begun to think yet," she answered 
 without raising her eyes. " At the present 
 moment the pressing question seems to me to 
 be not so much what I think as what he 
 thinks." 
 
 " But that s just the point: he doesn t think 
 anything! " 
 
 At that she delivered her blow. 
 
 "You poor innocent!" she cried, suddenly 
 facing me. " On what your reputation as a 
 reporter rests, I, for one, cannot imagine! Here 
 you go, telling this fellow your whole history: 
 telling him that you re from Philadelphia, which 
 is within a few hours of Mount ville, and where 
 he changed cars for Washington, didn t he, in 
 spite of his saying that he had never been in your 
 city? telling him you re a newspaper man with
 
 78 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 your cousin, Miss Baird I m surprised that 
 you did not, with more exactness, add: Miss 
 Frances Baird, detective, giving up your mind 
 as freely as if it were located in a sea-sick stomach 
 and then, you repeat your entire one-sided 
 conversation to me and expect me to believe 
 that the man doesn t suspect anything ! Poof ! 
 Let s go down to breakfast." 
 
 She made straight for the designated goal, and 
 I could do nothing but follow, protesting as I 
 might against an accusation which, the more I 
 thought it over, seemed to have a far too-sub 
 stantial basis. Not until she had eaten an exceed 
 ingly good meal would she talk any more about 
 the affair, but I noticed that she did not fail to 
 look hard at the Austrian, who sat some tables 
 away from us, never once glancing in our direction, 
 and I was at least gratified when, upon our 
 return to the upper promenade deck, she granted 
 that he must be the man we wanted. 
 
 " I ve felt all along," she continued, " that 
 the ransacking of that farmhouse was so thorough 
 that it couldn t have been done by one man in 
 the short time that must have elapsed between 
 the occurrence of the murder and its discovery, 
 and I am now sure that our friend Czibulka must 
 have been at work searching the upper part of 
 the house at the very moment when we were
 
 Spilled Milk 79 
 
 passing the time of day with the brothers Jaeger 
 on the turnpike." 
 
 " But you really think," I humbly ventured, 
 " that my lack of caution has injured mat 
 ters! " 
 
 " I don t know. It certainly has not helped 
 them. Of course, if this man Czibulka has been 
 supplied by his confederates with any word of 
 Fraulein Meyer s visit to me, he must be on the 
 lookout, now that you have bared your heart 
 to him. But, after all, that s spilled milk, and 
 I never worry over what can t be picked up 
 again. The only thing for us to do is to keep our 
 eyes as wide open as his can possibly be, and to 
 find out whatever is possible." 
 
 What we could find out proved, however, to be 
 little enough. Not that Czibulka became hard 
 of access ; on the contrary, it was he who sought 
 a presentation to Frances, and, when he was not 
 playing picquet with me in the Vienna cafe", he 
 appeared to be spending all his time promenading 
 with the pretty detective, bending over the music- 
 rack while she sat at the piano in the main 
 saloon, or superseding the deck-stewards at their 
 duties of tucking her into her chair and bringing 
 her the mid-morning broth to the clamour of the 
 brass band. But never once did he overdo any 
 thing that he attempted, and had not Frances
 
 80 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 proved to me after my first encounter with him 
 that he must be quite as much the diplomat as 
 the genial gentleman, I fear I should have re 
 nounced my original suspicions of him. 
 
 The detective and I were, on the fifth day out, 
 sitting side by side in steamer chairs, lazily 
 watching a quiet, pond-like sea. Czibulka had 
 left us a short time before, after winning from 
 me at cards. 
 
 " Does he play well? " inquired Frances medi 
 tatively. 
 
 "Well enough to prove himself my superior: 
 that is all." 
 
 " One must admit that he is a charming 
 travelling companion," said Frances. 
 
 "Yes," I agreed; "his cosmopolitan train 
 ing has furnished him, in spite of his unpre- 
 possessive appearance, with a delightful man 
 ner." 
 
 " He doesn t bore us much by talking of him 
 self," added the detective, reminding me of my 
 own powers of giving up information. " No," 
 she continued, " although I have offered him 
 every opportunity. He seems to prefer bringing 
 me bouillons and arranging my rugs to talking 
 on any but the most general topics. I have tried 
 quite skillfully, I thought to gain his confi 
 dence, but I receive only his gleaming smile and
 
 Spilled Milk 81 
 
 the conversation continues to run in channels not 
 connected with his own history and his own 
 activities." 
 
 Indeed, as the days of our voyage had sped 
 toward a close, I had become more and more 
 puzzled, and, as we drew nearer land, I was only 
 further at sea. If he had countered our leads by 
 questions about our own interests, I could have 
 solved him, but, instead, he shamed our curiosity 
 about himself by showing no curiosity regarding 
 us beyond what ways he could be of service or 
 amusement in our immediate needs. He had, in 
 short, completely and easily worsted an experi 
 enced newspaper man and a famous criminal in 
 vestigator, and it was quite our last night upon 
 the water before he even endeavoured to make 
 use of the advantage he had won. 
 
 That, of course, was the evening of the Captain s 
 dinner, and most of the passengers sat long at 
 the table. , We three, however, went on deck, 
 and then, as I wanted to buy the high field in 
 the pool for the run ending at Cherbourg, I left 
 Frances and Czibulka under the bridge and 
 hurried aft to the smoking-room. I had been 
 there about half an hour and had just purchased 
 my chance when there came a light tap at the 
 port by which I was standing and, looking up, I 
 saw the detective outside.
 
 82 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 I joined her immediately. She was stifling 
 with suppressed laughter. 
 
 "Well," she said, "he has played his trump 
 at last." 
 
 "What was it?" I asked. 
 
 " The right bower but, Sammy, I still have 
 the joker up my sleeve." 
 
 "I m not a dream -book," I insisted. " What 
 is the game, anyhow? " 
 
 " It was a kind of euchre, I suppose; but if it 
 had been bezique, I should have said that Czibulka 
 wants to declare a common marriage." 
 
 You mean to say that he has been making 
 love to you? " 
 
 " It appears that he thinks he s been doing that 
 all the way over: just now he s been proposing." 
 
 :< The whelp! In an effort to get the truth 
 out of you? " 
 
 :< That, I m afraid, Sammy, is the unflattering 
 fact." 
 
 " And what did you do? " 
 
 " I don t know what I should have done if he 
 had been sudden and American, but Continental 
 proposals are long affairs, so I had plenty of 
 time to think and, when he d finished, I told him 
 sadly that, at the time of sailing, I hadn t got 
 my divorce and that the wireless wasn t work-
 
 Spilled Milk 83 
 
 Her levity, I think, angered me even more than 
 Czibulka s impudence. 
 
 " Look here," I declared, " I don t know what 
 you propose doing you haven t been over- 
 confidential with me for the last day or so 
 but I ll tell you what I intend to do: I intend to 
 prefer a charge of murder against this man as 
 soon as we get ashore." 
 
 The threat at least served to sober her. 
 
 " No, you won t," she assured me. " We have 
 absolutely nothing worth while toward sub 
 stantiating such a charge, and, if we made it, 
 the news of it published or not would be 
 sure to reach the accomplices and only make our 
 chase all the harder. This thing s difficult enough 
 as it is, thank you." 
 
 Then what do you propose? " 
 
 " I propose to follow Czibulka." 
 
 " But where s the use of that, Frances? " asked 
 I, a little exasperated with her. " We know that 
 he is going to the embassy." 
 
 Frances whistled softly. 
 
 " Do you mean to say," she demanded, " that 
 you really believe that cock-and-bull yarn about 
 a diplomatic career and the private secretaryship 
 to the Paris ambassador from Austria? " 
 
 Why is it that the most plausible tale begins 
 to sound improbable the moment somebody
 
 84 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 applies to it the epithet "cock-and-bull"? It 
 had never occurred to me to doubt that portion 
 of Czibulka s story until I now heard Frances 
 thus describe it, but no sooner was the description 
 accomplished than I was ready to admit that I 
 might have been gulled again. 
 
 " Of course you ve been," she assured me with 
 a smile. " It is all rot. What you and I must do 
 is to keep after our little friend. If we just follow 
 him quietly enough and closely enough, he ll 
 lead us direct to Fraulein Meyer and Wilhelm 
 Jaeger." 
 
 Well, no one could have censured us for lack 
 of devotion. From that moment until the heart 
 of Paris itself had been reached, one or other of 
 us never lost sight of Czibulka. When we touched 
 Plymouth in the dead of night, I stood guard 
 at the gang-way and scrutinized every figure 
 that came aboard or went ashore, but neither 
 did the Austrian attempt to give us the slip, 
 nor did any suspicious passengers join the ship s 
 company. Later, as, in the clear dawn, we 
 scudded by the red English coast, I still patrolled 
 the decks and still watched in vain. Even when 
 we passed among the little fortifications of the 
 French harbour and the many-chimneyed Cher 
 bourg itself lay plain before us, our suspect was 
 was still invisible, and it was only when the fat
 
 Spilled Milk 85 
 
 tender had snorted alongside our liner, to the 
 blare of the band and the shouts of the heavily 
 laden porters, that he at last appeared and, still 
 smiling, preceded us down the plank and, finally, 
 ashore. 
 
 I did notice that our Austrian had small 
 trouble with the customs, and that he was one 
 of the first to climb into the waiting Paris express, 
 but, as we managed to keep close behind him 
 wherever he went and to get into the same 
 coach, this troubled me not at all, nor was I 
 annoyed to find that, during all the ride across 
 Normandy, until early evening found us jerking 
 through the purlieus of the French capital, he 
 remained sunk in a reserved silence that was new 
 to us. 
 
 But, once we had pulled into the roaring ter 
 minal, the man s whole manner changed. His 
 only hand-luggage was a small satchel, and as 
 the octroi had passed this without question, he 
 was out of the coach before the wheels had well 
 ceased revolving. There was just another flash 
 of the teeth, a quick farewell, and he had almost 
 vanished into the surging crowd. 
 
 Immediately Frances was upon the platform, 
 I following. We darted hither and thither among 
 the screaming cockers and porters. Twice we 
 lost sight of Czibulka and twice found him again,
 
 86 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 as if by a miracle, until at last we saw him scramble 
 into a taximetre the driver of which at once began 
 to belabour his weary steed. 
 
 The detective, whose French was better than 
 mine, was on the instant directing another 
 cocker in our behalf. 
 
 " Follow that cab," she commanded, " no 
 matter where it goes. Keep us in full sight of it 
 all the time, and I ll double your fare! " 
 
 We tumbled in just as Czibulka s vehicle rolled 
 out of the courtyard and, a moment later, at a 
 rattling pace, were trailing our quarry through 
 the brilliant streets. 
 
 " Now," murmured Frances, with something 
 like a sigh of relief; " we ought to be near the 
 end of the chase." 
 
 "Where," I asked, "do you suppose that it 
 will lead us? " 
 
 " Most likely to the Quartier or else up Mont- 
 martre way," she responded. "Certainly not 
 into the better part of town." 
 
 And yet, even as she spoke, we had turned 
 into what I later learned was the Rue de Varenne, 
 and there, just ahead of us, was Czibulka s cab 
 drawn up at an imposing doorway and Czibulka 
 himself entering the big house to which that 
 doorway belonged. 
 
 Frances leaped to the curb.
 
 Spilled Milk 87 
 
 " Cocker," she asked of our driver, " what place 
 is that? " 
 
 The cabbie took but a single glance. 
 
 " Madame," he answered, as he pocketed his 
 double fare, "it is the Austrian embassy."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 BEHIND THE CURTAIN 
 
 " Enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors 
 about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, 
 until the indignation be overpast." 
 
 THERE are times when I sincerely admire the 
 manner in which Frances Baird, through all her 
 strange career, has preserved those traits which 
 are essentially feminine. But that evening, as 
 we stood under the lamp-post on the Rue de 
 Varenne, the two cabs driving carelessly down 
 the street and the door of the imperial Austrian 
 embassy closing upon the man whose connection 
 with diplomacy my friend had so heartily ridi 
 culed that evening was not one of them. The 
 average male detective would at least have given 
 me some word of apology for having doubted a 
 story in which I had put my thus justified faith 
 and for having jeered at the faith I had so ex 
 hibited. But the woman detective remained a 
 woman. I turned to Frances with a triumphant 
 " I-told-you-so " smile upon my face, and the 
 sole comment of Frances was: 
 
 88
 
 Behind the Curtain 89 
 
 " I had begun to suspect this, after all." 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 " How long ago? " I wondered. 
 
 " Never mind that," she snapped. " This is 
 hardly a time for argument or even explanation, 
 Sammy. If I m not mistaken, we are playing 
 the biggest game that I have ever had a part in. 
 Come along! " 
 
 " With all my heart, but where? " 
 
 " Into the embassy." 
 
 That was like her too. Whenever she effected 
 a failure, she immediately sought to obliterate 
 its impression by doing something suddenly 
 daring. 
 
 " We sha n t get an audience; it s preposterous, 
 Frances," I weakly protested. " The thing s 
 impossible." 
 
 " I never say any thing s impossible until I 
 have tried it and then I try it again," said 
 Frances. " Come along." 
 
 I went, meekly enough after her rebuke, and, 
 in a moment, found myself standing before a 
 door that was held scarcely open by a servant 
 out of livery a queer, thin, wiry runt of a man 
 with a terrible cast in one eye and some defect 
 of the facial muscles that drew one corner of his 
 mouth far down toward his sharp, beardless chin. 
 
 " Monsieur? " he muttered interrogatively.
 
 90 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 Frances took the initiative. 
 Your pardon," she smiled sweetly. " You 
 were going out? " 
 
 The Cerebus frowned and his frown was no 
 more cheerful than his mythological ancestor s. 
 
 " I have responded to madame s summons," 
 he grumbled in pretty passable French. 
 
 My companion shrugged her shoulders, and 
 no words could more clearly have indicated her 
 doubt that this man was the servant he pretended 
 to be. However, the shrug expressed also Fran 
 ces s will to take him on his own terms and with 
 this her next speech accorded : 
 
 " To be sure," she said. " To be sure. Thank 
 you. We are travellers just arrived and so 
 have not had the time to procure a formal intro 
 duction, but we are come upon important business 
 with Monsieur the Ambassador." 
 
 It was now Cross-Eye s turn to shrug, but with 
 him the action was less conciliatory. 
 
 " I regret, madame," he growled. " It is quite 
 impossible.", 
 
 He started to close the door, but I was too 
 quick for him. My reporter s habit of forcing 
 an interview, if necessary, was upon me, and the 
 swinging planks got only so far as my heavy 
 travelling-boot; and when the doors were again 
 flung open in order that the guarding Austrian
 
 Behind the Curtain 91 
 
 might discover the impediment, Frances coolly 
 slipped into the dimly-lighted vestibule, closely 
 followed by me. 
 
 Cross-Eye s face went black with Oriental rage, 
 but Frances, ignoring his expression, addressed 
 him in a tone of honey : 
 
 " Are you quite sure that it is impossible? " 
 
 Her calm lack of regard for the fellow s rudeness 
 was enough to take the wind out of even his 
 sails. 
 
 "I I it is very certain, madame," he 
 stammered. 
 
 She put out her gloved hand and I saw her place 
 into his great palm something that looked like a 
 fifty-franc note. 
 
 " Still sure? " she almost whispered. 
 
 Cross-Eye at once found his concealed manners. 
 
 "If madame would consent to see not the 
 ambassador, but a 
 
 " But I will not consent." 
 
 " Then then " and his hand closed tightly 
 over the note ; "if madame will but make memo 
 randum of her mission on her card," he murmured 
 obsequiously, " I shall with much pleasure present 
 it to Monsieur the Baron." 
 
 Frances was never a woman for hesitation. 
 She drew from her purse one of her own cards, 
 hastily scribbled upon it and then held it up for
 
 92 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 me to see. Leaning over her shoulder, I saw 
 written there, above her name: 
 
 " I talked with the man Hans Jaeger fifteen 
 minutes before his death; a few minutes later 
 I took, secretly, from the Jaeger house, the 
 jewel of the Golden Fleece." 
 
 " Then take this at once," she commanded. 
 
 Cross-Eye bowed very low. 
 
 "At once, madame," he repeated; "but if 
 Monsieur should still refuse - 
 
 " He won t," assured Frances, in her tone of 
 finality, and the man, at her words turning his 
 back upon us, seemed at once to vanish through 
 the shadowed wall. 
 
 We waited, by tacit consent, in absolute silence. 
 Frances, I suppose, feared that whatever she might 
 say would be overheard, and I, for my part, was 
 quite too amazed by the audacity of the message 
 on that card to give thought to anything save 
 unspoken wonder concerning our next move. 
 
 But our patience was not to be tried severely. 
 In fact Cross-Eye was gone but a very short time, 
 and when he returned, it was with a new alacrity. 
 There was a flood of profound apologies upon his 
 lips; there were a dozen reverences in his supple 
 little back. Monsieur the Ambassador would 
 give us immediately five minutes. Would we 
 be so good as to follow? Would we be careful
 
 Behind the Curtain 93 
 
 to avoid the single step? And, finally, would 
 we enter? 
 
 We would enter and we did. 
 
 The opening door disclosed a small, sparsely 
 furnished room and, notwithstanding the fact 
 that it was but little better-lighted than the 
 vestibule that we had just left, I saw at a glance 
 that W 7 e were within the ambassadorial work 
 room, an office devoted entirely to business 
 affairs. On the low book-shelves, which ran 
 about the four walls, were nothing but those 
 solemn and forbidding volumes which, the world 
 over, one may safely gamble are government- 
 reports. Above these, here and there, hung a 
 few portraits, and, at the far end of the room, 
 over a small safe of ancient pattern, was a large 
 oil painting of the present Austrian Emperor. 
 The sole illumination came from a large, green- 
 shaded lamp, which was suspended above a big 
 roll-top desk that stood just at right angles to 
 a pair of drawn curtains apparently hiding a 
 deep window that looked upon the street. From 
 this desk there arose, as we entered, the represen 
 tative of Franz-Josef at the French capital. 
 
 The Baron Ferdinand-Salvator Klepsch-Kloth 
 de Hetzendorf is a tall man so tall that, were he 
 not proportionately broad of shoulder and wide of 
 girth, he would seem a veritable giant. His face,
 
 94 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 moreover, is the model of diplomatic dignity: 
 the wealth of carefully-dressed hair about the 
 fine temples is silver, and silver is the huge mous 
 tache that almost hides his firm, straight mouth; 
 and the bushy eyebrows from beneath which his 
 cold, blue eyes cast glances as swift and as certain 
 as the bullet from a master-marksman s rifle. 
 I confess that, as I then first saw him, I felt we 
 were about to deal with a mind well capable of 
 our best efforts nor did his opening words to 
 us serve in any wise to remove this impression. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Baird," he said, allowing his 
 eyes first to rest upon her card and then upon my 
 companion; " I am honoured greatly by your 
 visit this evening, but I trust you will pardon a 
 very busy man if he must ask you without delay 
 to inform him exactly as to what the honour is 
 due." 
 
 He had spoken in perfect English; he had 
 bowed graciously over Frances s extended hand; 
 he had nodded to me and had waved us to chairs 
 within a few feet of him ; but his voice had been 
 like the click of steel and, as he now sat down at 
 the roll-top desk, his elbow almost touching the 
 dark curtains at the window, he looked at us 
 with a flash of those blue eyes, which plainly 
 said that, having forced the war into our own 
 territory, he meant to keep it there.
 
 Behind the Curtain 95 
 
 But diplomats were not so new a story to 
 Frances as to frighten her. 
 
 " I came, monsieur," said she, " because of my 
 connection with the matter of which I have made 
 a memorandum on my card." 
 
 Again the Baron scrutinized the card. 
 
 " But," he commented, " it is precisely an 
 explanation of that memorandum that I am 
 requesting." 
 
 " Do you mean me to understand, monsieur, 
 that you have admitted us without compre 
 hending the message that I sent? " 
 
 " My dear Mademoiselle Baird, I must confess 
 to the fault of curiosity. Of all the admirable 
 weaknesses of your charming sex, this is the 
 only one that I have ever permitted myself to 
 emulate." 
 
 Then you wish to tell me that you have not 
 heard of the man Hans Jaeger? " 
 
 : The name is scarcely uncommon, mademoi 
 selle." 
 
 " Nor of his murder in America? " 
 
 " Mademoiselle must know that I have not 
 been in America these twenty years." 
 
 There was a pause Frances smiling sweetly 
 at the Baron and the Baron trying hard to smile 
 sweetly at Frances, but succeeding rather in 
 smiling diplomatically.
 
 96 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 It was then that I lost patience. I do not like 
 being ignored more than do most other people, and 
 I was just now tired and hungry and extremely 
 disgusted. 
 
 "Monsieur," said I and at that the Baron 
 turned upon me with a quickness that seemed to 
 show that he had indeed been forgetting my 
 presence - " monsieur, we are wasting your time 
 and our own. Miss Baird is not a diplomatist; 
 she is just a plain American detective. With her 
 I have come here to run down a murderer 
 and, if you have not heard the story of that man s 
 crime, I think it is high time that you should be 
 told of it." 
 
 Whereupon, and before either of my hearers 
 could interrupt me, I took up the narrative of the 
 Mountville mystery and brought it to the moment 
 of our discovery of the Toison d Or. 
 
 " Now, monsieur," I concluded, " we know from 
 these facts that the victim was a country-man of 
 yours; that he was a man of eminence in his 
 native land. I assure you that we have just as 
 strong reasons to believe that his murderer fled 
 to this city and that he is known to certain persons 
 probably unworthy servants in your employ. 
 We know beyond a doubt that this is true of at 
 least one of his accomplices and we mean, in plain 
 terms, to make an arrest unless you can satisfy
 
 Behind the Curtain 97 
 
 us that none should be made, or unless you can 
 answer the question: Where is the man that passed 
 as Wilhelm Jaeger ? " 
 
 Frances had sat by me in amazed silence during 
 this oration of mine ; the Baron, on the other hand, 
 had begun by listening with an attentive, though 
 somewhat perplexed, wrinkle between his bushy 
 eyebrows, but had ended soon by relapsing into 
 an expression of difficultly concealed boredom. 
 
 " Young man," he said at last, " you do, indeed, 
 amaze me. I am sure that it is not necessary for 
 me to repeat that I had not before heard of this 
 curious crime, but, now that I have heard of it, I 
 beg to commend both you and your charming colla- 
 borateur for your zealous efforts on behalf of ven 
 geance for a deed done to one whom you supposed 
 to have been my countryman. Nevertheless, 
 monsieur, I must point out to you that, in coming 
 to me, you are taking what you Americans would 
 call the longest way home." 
 
 Something in that phrase seemed to catch 
 Frances s ear. 
 
 You mean - " she began. 
 
 " I mean," continued the Baron, his tone 
 politely grave, " that your proper course would 
 have been to act in conjunction with the regularly- 
 constituted police in your own country, and that 
 since the presence of the Toison d Or on the
 
 98 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 body of a farmer pointed to a theft committed 
 in Austria you should have called in the aid 
 of our embassy at Washington not Paris - 
 which, of course, would have been glad to assist 
 you providing that you could have proved 
 your story by the production of the jewel." 
 
 There was a nasty twang to those last words, 
 which annoyed me even more than the tenor of 
 all that had preceded them. 
 
 " Does monsieur try to imply," I demanded, 
 " that our narrative lacks the convincing 
 quality? " 
 
 The Baron s gray eyebrows shot upward. 
 
 " My dear sir," he said, " I make no doubt that 
 you did find upon this body some sort of ornament 
 that had never before come under your observa 
 tion. But how many Americans would know the 
 insignia of the Golden Fleece from those, for 
 instance, of the Bath? Or, if the jewel in question 
 answered such printed descriptions as you may 
 have become more or less familiar with, how are 
 you to tell that it is not, after all, a mere counter 
 feit? " 
 
 In a moment more I should have produced that 
 jewel to convince him. As it was, my hand went 
 flying instinctively to my breast-pocket when 
 Frances s fingers encountered it and calmly drew 
 it down.
 
 Behind the Curtain 99 
 
 " There is much in your point of view, 
 monsieur," her quiet voice was murmuring 
 " a very great deal indeed. I regret that we cannot 
 obtain your expert opinion." 
 
 " Ah, then you have not the jewel with you? " 
 
 " I thought it best to leave it in a safe-deposit 
 box in New York." 
 
 The Baron stroked his silver moustache: I 
 was not sure, but I fancied that the long white 
 fingers engaged in that occupation were less 
 steady than they should have been, and, reading 
 disappointment in this evidence of nervousness, 
 I began mentally to congratulate Frances for the 
 quick wit that had saved me from falling into the 
 Ambassador s trap. 
 
 " Yes," he was saying, "it is a pity, a very 
 great pity. - - You say, sir, that you found this 
 decoration about the dead man s neck? " 
 
 I had not said so, but I was about to admit as 
 much when Frances again lied glibly: 
 
 " No, not about his neck, monsieur; not even, 
 in reality, on the body. In fact, not to be too 
 precise, we found it in a secret hiding-place in 
 the farm-house a place evidently overlooked 
 by the searching murderers." 
 
 This was all very well, but I was once more 
 tiring of the Ambassador s Fabian tactics. 
 
 " After all, monsieur," I said with what finality
 
 100 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 I could master, " these details matter little. You 
 are avoiding the issue. I have made you my 
 proposition: do you accept it or do you refuse 
 it?" 
 
 In spite of my foreknowledge of my uncertain 
 premises, I looked at him commandingly, trying 
 to force him into a direct yes or no; but the 
 Baron met my bull-dog gaze with a cold, blue 
 eye. 
 
 " You still fancy," said he, " that I am really 
 able to tell you the whereabouts of the man you 
 seek? " 
 
 " Monsieur," I answered, " will you or will 
 you not tell us the whereabouts of Wilhelm 
 Jaeger? " 
 
 "And if I will not?" 
 
 Then we shall be forced to demand of the 
 French government the arrest to which I quite 
 some time ago referred." 
 
 De Hetzendorf never let his eyes waver from 
 mine. 
 
 " I asked that question," he clicked, " because 
 I found it impossible to conceive that two such 
 clever persons as you and mademoiselle should 
 not appreciate the position in which you have 
 placed yourselves. You admit that you entered 
 that farm-house without authorization, and that 
 you have acted without proper authorization ever
 
 Behind the Curtain 101 
 
 since. You confess yourselves thieves, and 
 mademoiselle has written her confession here in 
 her own hand upon her own card. Monsieur 
 mademoiselle " and the Baron slowly rose from 
 his chair until his six-feet-six towered above us 
 " I warn you that you are treading on delicate 
 ground ; I assure you that what you saw was no 
 murder, but lawful execution, and, finally, I 
 tell you as my last word and in all frankness, that, 
 unless you leave this house unless you leave 
 France without more speech of this affair, I 
 shall end the whole matter by having you both 
 taken into custody upon a charge of theft." 
 
 At that, as you may well imagine, we were all 
 on our feet. 
 
 " Do you mean "I spluttered. 
 
 " Exactly what I say," announced the Baron, 
 his cold eyes harder than ever. 
 
 " You may arrest us and welcome, monsieur," 
 cooed the dove-like voice of my companion ; " but, 
 as you know, there is no surer way of bringing 
 the whole story before the public." 
 
 De Hetzendorf smiled grimly. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Baird," he said, " I beg to 
 remind you that Europe is not your America, 
 and the Parisian press does not chronicle every 
 minor arrest in the capital." 
 
 But now at last I was in a familiar field.
 
 102 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 "Perhaps not, monsieur," I almost shouted; 
 " but I happen to be an American newspaper 
 reporter. Do you think that we came here without 
 my telling my paper why? Let me tell you that 
 the moment we disappear, it will be looking for 
 us. Let me tell you also that this paper will 
 print or suppress the Jaeger story at my command ; 
 that it will surely print it if any harm should come 
 to Miss Baird or to me ; and that though I 
 am a reasonable and conscientious man and as 
 such open to conviction though, in short, I 
 can conceive of reasons why this piece of news 
 might do more harm if published than suppressed 
 - 1 will, nevertheless, even should you withdraw 
 your threats, print this story unless you can 
 satisfactorily explain your reasons for wanting it 
 kept quiet! " 
 
 Well, he didn t like that, and I could not blame 
 him. It was, of course, but a sheer bluff that I 
 had made, but he didn t know it, and on the face 
 of it you would certainly say that I had him. He 
 himself thought so, at any rate, for, after a moment 
 of hard thinking, as we all three stood there in 
 the dim lamp-light, he took up a line of attack 
 that I have never known to be followed save as 
 a desperate hope. 
 
 " My friends," he said, very gravely, " I see 
 that you are not convinced. I can only assure
 
 Behind the Curtain 103 
 
 you yet again that I know no more than you of 
 the whereabouts of the man whom you call Wilhelm 
 Jaeger. But I can also give you my word of 
 honour that, if the highest international interests 
 and the cause of the peace of Europe will serve 
 to induce you to abandon this wild scheme, I 
 shall personally see that you are remunerated to 
 any figure that, within reason and even somewhat 
 beyond it, you may name." 
 
 I should have laughed at this I am somewhat 
 hardened to that sort of thing but Frances 
 suddenly stepped between us. I had finished 
 my part for the moment and the offer of money 
 was her cue to appear somewhat angrily upon 
 the stage. 
 
 " In other words, monsieur," she said, her cheeks 
 flushing and her speech coming rapidly, " you 
 desire to bribe us! It is a defence that none but 
 a trapped coward ever employs and it ends our 
 negotiations." 
 
 I suppose that it isn t often a great diplomat 
 loses his temper, but then it isn t often that a 
 great diplomat and member of one of the oldest 
 and proudest families of all Europe to his face, 
 at least is called a coward and a criminal. At 
 all events, de Hetzendorf seemed .immediately to 
 see red. 
 
 " You may go! " he thundered. " You may go
 
 104 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 at once! I have borne enough of your insolence. 
 Neither I nor mine have any knowledge of this 
 matter: tell it how and where you please! Pub 
 lish it in all your American newspapers if it so 
 pleases you to do. But the Austrian ambassador 
 to Paris knows nothing of it ! " 
 
 " Very well," replied Frances, who, on the rare 
 occasions when she gave way to anger, always 
 regained her self-control as soon as she had made 
 her enemy lose his; "we shall not detain you 
 longer. But in parting, let me add one word: 
 though I do not for a moment doubt your assur 
 ance of ignorance regarding the Jaeger case, there 
 is at least a close acquaintance of yours who can 
 not truthfully say so much himself." 
 
 Perhaps the threat in her tone really frightened 
 him, or perhaps the Baron had spoken truth when 
 he confessed to a feminine curiosity. In either 
 event, his rage began to give place to another 
 emotion. 
 
 To whom," he stiffly demanded, " do you 
 refer? " 
 
 Frances took one swift step to the right. 
 
 " I mean," she answered, " the man at your 
 elbow: the man in front of your window and 
 behind those curtains! " 
 
 A loud crash of glass punctuated her declara 
 tion. With a deft toss of her arm, the detective
 
 Behind the Curtain 105 
 
 drew aside the draperies from the window at 
 the Baron s left, and there, just in the act of 
 leaping into the street, crouched our scared and 
 now bleeding friend, the amiable Bolfras Czibulka.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE STOLEN BLUEPRINTS 
 
 "Should he reason with unprofitable talk? or with 
 speeches wherewith he can do no good? " 
 
 I HAVE often wondered what it was that wiped 
 the next few minutes completely from the tablets 
 of my memory. It wasn t only the unexpected 
 ness of the event, for I could have anticipated 
 nothing less than I anticipated the wild flight 
 that I was soon to make through Montmartre, 
 and yet every incident of the latter occurrence 
 is still clear and fresh in my recollection. On the 
 other hand, it could no more have been the 
 rapidity of the whole denouement, because its 
 action was scarcely more rapid than that slaughter 
 in which I was so speedily to play a part, and yet 
 there is no smallest detail of the latter tragedy 
 that has escaped me. 
 
 It is, I suppose, a problem for the ever-investi 
 gating psychologist. All that I can say is that I 
 still have a vague vision of Frances, through the 
 flying glass, dragging back Czibulka from his wild 
 effort at retreat, while I covered him with my 
 
 106
 
 The Stolen Blueprints 107 
 
 revolver and while the Baron de Hetzendorf flung 
 up his hands in a last gesture of despair, and, 
 sinking into his chair again, no longer master of 
 himself and us, motioned us all to seats before 
 him. 
 
 Somehow or other we found our way to the 
 indicated chairs and sat down, Frances trying 
 calmly to fan herself with the wisp of linen that 
 she called her handkerchief; I in my former 
 place with my revolver ready in my open palm, 
 and black-cropped, bristling Czibulka between us, 
 smiling no more now, but mopping, ever and anon, 
 the blood that trickled from an ugly cut at the 
 point of his pugnacious chin. 
 
 It was the voice of the Ambassador that broke 
 the silence. 
 
 " Monsieur," he began, addressing his com 
 patriot and speaking, I thought, in a tone even 
 less conciliatory than that which he had latterly 
 employed towards us "you will agree with 
 me that our American friends have been too 
 clever to let our little plan succeed. They have 
 quite outwitted us " he bowed first to Frances 
 and then to me " and I congratulate them 
 accordingly. In the circumstances, then, there 
 is nothing for us to do but to throw ourselves 
 upon their mercy. Mademoiselle Baird, mon 
 sieur ? "
 
 108 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " Burton," I supplied. 
 
 "Monsieur Burton," he continued; "I am 
 about to place the safety of my country in your 
 hands. May I feel assured in return, of that 
 good will and secrecy of which the generous 
 American nature should be, per se, a guaran 
 tee? " 
 
 I looked toward Frances for it was, after all, 
 her game rather than mine and, in so doing, 
 saw Czibulka s eyes nearly leaping from their 
 sockets. But Frances, though she too must have 
 noted these tokens of amazement on the part 
 of our late camarade de vaisseau, was nodding a 
 ready assent. 
 
 " On the part of both Mr. Burton and myself," 
 she said, " I promise that we shall keep the truth 
 as secret as becomes our respective duties." 
 
 This, it seemed to me, was a mere dodging of the 
 issue, but, oddly enough, the Baron appeared 
 satisfied. 
 
 " Very well," he responded. " You will be 
 obliged, then, to bear with me while I begin by 
 going into a dull matter of political history and 
 end by narrating a little court gossip." 
 
 He leaned back in his chair, evidently at his 
 ease in facing the inevitable, closed his eyes 
 reflectively and placed together the tips of his 
 long, white fingers.
 
 The Stolen Blueprints 109 
 
 " The internal dissensions of my unhappy 
 country," he began, " are, of course, so much a 
 matter of common knowledge that I need not, 
 to persons of your intelligence, narrate them in 
 detail. There are two sorts of nations the govern 
 ment of which is mere child s play: the first is 
 such a nation as France, where all the people are 
 of one blood, one language and one tradition, and 
 the second is such a nation as your own where the 
 body of citizens have either come together with a 
 common purpose, or else are made up of so many 
 various strains that no single strain can hopefully 
 struggle for the entire control. But my own 
 country is in neither category. It is, speaking 
 broadly, composed of but two races, each distinct, 
 each jealous of the other. Its very name, Austro- 
 Hungary, sounds forth the theme of its sorrow, 
 and the miserable war between the Austrians and 
 the Hungarians within its limits is as bitter as 
 it is unceasing. 
 
 " For a long time now, this warfare, though 
 confined within the realm of purely political 
 activity, has needed only the appearance of 
 another Kossuth to precipitate open revolution. 
 Lately, moreover, the differences between the two 
 peoples have centred upon the question of the 
 division between them of the expenses of the 
 government, and the bitterness thus centred has,
 
 110 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 you may be sure, been tenderly and assiduously 
 nursed among the Hungarians by our arch-enemy 
 in St. Petersburg. 
 
 " Russia is, and has always been, greedy to 
 obtain from us the province of Galicia, which 
 blocks the progress of the Muscovite advance 
 upon the Balkans in its way toward Turkey and 
 the Aegean. In the pursuit of its ancient policy, 
 and by means of the greatest spy-system that the 
 world has ever seen, Russia, therefore, has not 
 long scrupled at any means or any expense for 
 the incitement of discord in my country. In the 
 present crisis it has even, I regret to say, pur 
 chased bribed - bought up, or cornered, as 
 you Americans so picturesquely put it persons 
 of considerable standing in Vienna, some of whom 
 are known to us as traitors, but by far the most 
 dangerous of whom have been able to work 
 incalculable evils because they were so long 
 regarded as high above suspicion. 
 
 " Into this latter class fall the tribe with which 
 we have now to deal. One of this triumvirate 
 of Judases was no less a person than the Baron 
 Radetsky, a nephew of the Austrian field-marshal 
 famous during the occupation of Italy, and, at 
 the time of his treasonable activity, attached, in 
 a highly confidential position, to our Department 
 of War. Another was a certain Colonel Lichten-
 
 The Stolen Blueprints 111 
 
 stein, of the General Staff, undeniably an able 
 officer. And the third was the Countess Routkov- 
 sky, probably the most beautiful woman of the 
 court circle and high in the confidence of our 
 beloved emperor himself. With Radetsky, we 
 have learned, the opening was gained because of 
 a slight which he imagined had been put upon 
 him in some matter of promotion. Lichtenstein, 
 on the contrary, has always been at heart, through 
 maternal influences, an ardent supporter of the 
 cause of Hungarian freedom, and the Countess 
 Stephanie Routkovsky was approached when 
 facing ruin precipitated by high play. Monsieur 
 Czibulka, who originally secured the major por 
 tion of this information, will bear me out." 
 
 We looked again at Czibulka, but he was still 
 too busy mopping the cut in his chin to contribute 
 much beyond a nod, and the Ambassador con 
 tinued: 
 
 " The trio that I have named Radetsky, 
 Lichtenstein and the Countess Routkovsky soon 
 became the active heads of the Russian secret 
 service bureau of information in Vienna. At last, 
 however, this was nine months ago my 
 government, thanks to Monsieur Czibulka, dis 
 covered the nature of their activities and had them 
 watched. Evidence was plenty and the net was 
 spread when, just as the arrests were about to be
 
 112 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 made, some other traitor warned the three chief 
 criminals: the Countess and the Colonel fled to 
 Germany and were traced as far as Bremen, where 
 all clews vanished, and Radetsky made good his 
 escape to America. 
 
 " Although we should naturally have preferred 
 to punish criminals of so vile a nature, we might 
 not so much have regretted their flight, and might 
 have solaced ourselves with the thought that they 
 were at least removed from the place where they 
 could do us most harm, were it not for the dis 
 covery that the thoughtful Radetsky had pro 
 vided himself against penury by taking along 
 with him from the War Department a large series 
 of blue-prints descriptive of some of our most 
 important fortifications. When, therefore, our 
 spies in Berlin reported that an Austrian in the 
 United States was negotiating with Germany for 
 the sale of plans of some of these fortifications 
 along the northern frontier of his native country, 
 we at once concluded that Radetsky was again 
 becoming perniciously active, and when, set to 
 work, our American agents confirmed these sus 
 picions, we decided that mercy had been suffi 
 ciently strained and that the traitor must go no 
 longer unpunished. 
 
 " To shorten a long story, my friends, one of 
 these agents was commissioned to gain the con-
 
 The Stolen Blueprints 113 
 
 fidence of Radetsky in the United States, by 
 representing himself as a German spy, and this he 
 did just as the fugitive, reduced almost to dire 
 poverty, had rented the farm near the little town 
 where your own adventures began. Our spy, 
 becoming the fast friend of the renegade, offered 
 to join him in this agricultural enterprise until 
 the Berlin government should be heard from, and 
 that offer was finally accepted. Accordingly, 
 the pair of them spy and runaway lived on 
 the American farm, where they posed as the 
 brothers Jaeger, while all the time our spy was 
 trying on the one hand to discover and steal from 
 Radetsky the plans that he had somewhere 
 hidden, and while Radetsky, on the other hand, 
 was trying to drive with the supposed German 
 agent as hard a bargain as possible. 
 
 " This continued for nearly six weeks, during 
 which time, of course, the German government 
 was never heard from, while our spy met with 
 no success in his search for the plans. At the end 
 of that period, Radetsky began to grow sus 
 picious. 
 
 " Our agent, noticing this, communicated at 
 last with his ambassador in Washington, where 
 upon there is no need nor use in winking at 
 facts the order went forth that the safety of a 
 nation was above the life of a traitor even if that
 
 114 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 traitor was in a foreign country and beyond the 
 jurisdiction of the home government; the traitor 
 must, therefore, be killed on a certain day and his 
 house thereafter ransacked at leisure until the 
 plans be found. 
 
 " Monsieur Czibulka was just then attached to 
 the Washington legation. As he had been the 
 source of our original information against Radet- 
 sky in Vienna, he was commissioned to go to 
 Mountville, identify the body and assist in the 
 search. He made ready to go but was delayed 
 twenty-four hours by an attack of ptomaine 
 poisoning caused from your delicious but deadly 
 American lobster. However, at last arrived at 
 his destination by a circuitous route, he entered 
 the farm-house at the hour when, he had been 
 informed, the spy and Radetsky would certainly 
 be on their way to the village postoffice, where 
 they were accustomed to call twice every day in 
 the latter s hope of hearing from his Austrian 
 fellow-conspirators or of hearing that his supposed 
 friend had received from Berlin the final orders 
 and money for the purchase of the plans of the 
 fortifications. 
 
 " Now, Monsieur Czibulka, as he has just assured 
 me, did not, being a humane man, want to be 
 present at the actual killing of Radetsky. The 
 latter, however, seems hourly to have been growing
 
 The Stolen Blueprints 115 
 
 more and more suspicious of his house-companion, 
 and, on this particular day, when the pair met 
 a couple of strangers on the road and were asked 
 questions of an unusual sort, those suspicions 
 leaped into a kind of hysterical certainty. The 
 traitor insisted upon an immediate return to the 
 house, which, you understand of course, was 
 thus reached before Monsieur Czibulka was 
 expecting such a home-coming. 
 
 " In brief, my friends, there was a tableau - 
 and a cry from Radetsky, which was necessarily 
 cut short by our spy, along with the life of the 
 man who had uttered it. The search of the house 
 was at once completed; the blue-prints were 
 found under the bricks of the kitchen-hearth, and 
 Monsieur Czibulka and the spy, their work quite 
 accomplished, fled with all speed separating at 
 Philadelphia, the former to return to his duties 
 in Washington, the latter to proceed at once 
 with the papers, to Vienna. 
 
 " Monsieur Czibulka naturally supposed the 
 matter well ended. Indeed, I may say that we 
 all supposed as much, and I make no doubt but 
 that you will appreciate our sense of relief. Alas, 
 the difficulties had only begun! 
 
 " Within a few days we learned, to our amaze 
 ment, that the spy had been met at Philadelphia 
 by a woman whose description answered to that
 
 116 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 of the Countess Routkovsky, though she then 
 called herself by the less lofty name of Gretchen 
 Meyer. The two of them, it seemed, had then 
 proceeded to New York, whence they sailed on 
 the Kaiser Wilhelm II for Cherbourg. Thence 
 they were traced to Paris and here we have lost 
 sight of them altogether! " 
 
 The Ambassador paused, his story completed, 
 and, turning up the palms of his hands hopelessly, 
 looked us over with the gaze of a beaten 
 man. 
 
 We were all silent for a moment. I looked at 
 Frances to see how she had received the story and 
 thought I noticed a skeptical curve in the corners 
 of her lips. It was she who first spoke. 
 
 " Monsieur," she said, " do you mean to say that 
 your agent eloped with the friend of the man he 
 had just killed?" 
 
 The Ambassador nodded. 
 
 " That he was so suddenly converted to a cause 
 the temptation of which he had so successfully 
 resisted all the while he was on the Jaeger 
 farm? " 
 
 "So it would appear, mademoiselle." 
 
 " But, monsieur, how do you account for any 
 thing so out of all reason? " 
 
 :< I do not account for it: I accept the facts 
 the testimony of those who, too late, followed the
 
 The Stolen Blueprints 117 
 
 runaways trail, and the undeniable truth that, 
 wherever he may now be, this spy has not delivered 
 the papers to his government. Those of my 
 colleagues who like to theorize have concluded 
 that someone in the Washington embassy had 
 forewarned the Countess. She is known to have 
 had a strong, personal dislike for Radetsky, 
 even while compelled to work for him, because 
 it was he who first won money from her and then 
 forced her into the occupation of a spy: my 
 colleagues, therefore, conclude that, forewarned 
 as she must have been, she nevertheless allowed 
 Radetsky to be murdered ; that she then either 
 raised funds from the Russian ambassador to 
 America to buy the murderer or else that she 
 in some way imposed upon the man, doubtless 
 making full use of her wonderful beauty, and so, 
 bringing him to this city, made away with him. 
 It matters little: in either event, the plans are 
 now in the possession of the Countess Routkovsky 
 and Colonel Lichtenstein. It is to recover them 
 that Monsieur Czibulka has been sent to France, 
 and it is because I feared that your impetuous 
 American virtues might prevent this recovery that 
 I assumed toward you, my friends, a manner that 
 I now deeply regret." 
 
 Once more we all came to a pause the others 
 for what reasons I can t guess, but I because, sud-
 
 118 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 denly, all things else seemed of small import 
 beside the hope that Gretchen Meyer might still 
 be somewhere in Paris and that it might be my 
 good fortune again to see her beautiful face with 
 its blazing, black eyes and red wound of a mouth. 
 
 " You are sure," I asked finally, " that they 
 have not yet left this city? " 
 
 " I am quite sure that the Colonel, the Countess 
 and the plans are still in Paris. The moment 
 the fugitives were lost sight of by the agent that 
 had trailed them from Cherbourg, we had spies 
 stationed at the Russian embassy, and from that 
 minute until this, every railway station, every 
 avenue of exit from the city, has been watched 
 night and day." 
 
 She was really here then ! That was enough for 
 me. I didn t worry any more about the troubles 
 of Austria or the woes of ambassadors. Only 
 dimly do I recall the round of apologies that 
 followed the conclusion of de Hetzendorf s nar 
 rative, the detective s re-inforced promises of 
 silence, and the diplomat s shower of compliments. 
 The next thing, in truth, of which I was, in any 
 sane degree, conscious was the fact that we were 
 once more standing, Frances and I, in the Rue 
 de Varenne, and that my own voice, strangely 
 unfamiliar in its detachment from the trend of 
 thoughts, was murmuring :
 
 The Stolen Blueprints 119 
 
 " So we needn t have been so careful in keeping 
 an eye on Czibulka, after all." 
 
 " Perhaps not," snapped Frances; " but I think 
 our friend the ambassador had better keep both 
 eyes on him, just the same."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 AU L ABBAYE 
 " Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs." 
 
 THE hint of a further mystery about Czibulka 
 brought me back in all haste from the world of 
 dreams. 
 
 " What do you think is the row in that quar 
 ter? " I asked as we mounted a passing cab and 
 headed toward the Chatham. 
 
 " Czibulka," replied Frances yawning osten 
 tatiously, " is, of course, a traitor to his own 
 employer." 
 
 But I could not at all see how that might be, 
 and I confessed as much. 
 
 " If your memory were good," she responded, 
 " you could not help seeing it. The whole thing 
 hinges on the statement of that Pullman con 
 ductor on the Philadelphia train : he told us that 
 the man with the scar left his companion at 
 Philadelphia after the red-headed woman came 
 aboard. Therefore, one of three things must be 
 true: first, the conductor s memory must have 
 
 120
 
 Au L Abbaye 121 
 
 failed him in that particular, although it ap 
 parently remained perfect in all others; or, 
 second, the ambassador s whole story is a lie, and 
 much of it sounded true; or, finally, Czibulka, 
 while in the pay of Austria, is also in league with 
 the Countess and her Russian spies. You may 
 take your choice. For my part, I m inclined to 
 think that there was just a slight tendency toward 
 romance in the ambassador s yarn there were 
 several points about it that struck me as rather 
 suspicious, as, for instance, the necessity of the 
 murder, when they could have got all they 
 wanted without actual bloodshed and run far less 
 danger of discovery. All the same, I m about 
 convinced that Czibulka is either a complete 
 traitor to his master or else is carrying water on 
 both shoulders and drawing money from each 
 bucket." 
 
 I saw that she was well away on one of her 
 soliloquizing sprees, and I let her go unaccom 
 panied; I myself fell to dreaming again of the 
 Fraulein Meyer or the Countess Routkovsky - 
 one name was quite as good as another, and none, 
 I felt silently sure, could be the name of a mere 
 adventuress let her go on, I say, all the while 
 we were being driven through the streets behind 
 a bony Paris horse and as we were being assigned 
 to our rooms by the gallant gentleman in the
 
 122 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 plug hat, who greeted us on our entrance to the 
 hotel, and continue until, dinner over and coffee 
 served, she came to a stop at last as we sat looking 
 out on the little hotel-court. Then I saw her 
 yawn again. 
 
 I looked at my watch, and her eyes framed a 
 question. 
 
 " Ten-thirty," I answered. 
 
 " In that case," said Frances decisively, " I 
 shall turn in while you go and do the boule 
 vards." 
 
 " While I . But how did you know ? " 
 
 " Because it s your first night in Paris. Good 
 night, and remember that we must breakfast not 
 a moment later than nine." 
 
 With that she left me, and I did set out 
 upon much the sort of expedition that she had 
 hinted at, though to a goal that even Frances 
 Baird little imagined. 
 
 Just where I went I didn t, at that time, know, 
 but now I understand that, at last, I must have 
 walked west along the Boulevard des Capucines, 
 for I came out on the Place de la Madeleine, and 
 thence turned northward into the maze of steep, 
 dark, narrow streets that fringe the southern 
 boundary of Montmartre. There was a chilly 
 silence almost a mystery about them that 
 gave me a keener sense of being far from America
 
 Au L Abbaye 123 
 
 than I had met in all the lighted and crowded 
 thoroughfares below, and it was almost with 
 regret that, finally, I struck east upon the Boule 
 vard de Clichy and came into the blaze of lights 
 that crown the Place Pigalle. 
 
 I was tired and I wanted to rest ; I was hungry 
 and I wanted to eat. I asked a loiterer where I 
 might find a cafe", and he, shrugging his shoulders, 
 pointed to where the lights were brightest and 
 murmured : 
 
 " UAbbaye, le restaurant d Albert, c est la." 
 
 I crossed the street, climbed a narrow flight of 
 stairs, and then the blare of music, the clatter of 
 dishes, the sound of song and the melody of many 
 laughing voices struck me almost as a blow. 
 
 In white and pale green from floor to high 
 ceiling, the rectangular room was not so small as 
 to be close, nor yet so large that its habitue s 
 might not form one party. The long wall-seats 
 were crowded, and so too were the chairs that 
 faced them across marble-topped tables; even 
 the smaller tables agleam with bright silver 
 and napery and heavy with tall bottles and petty 
 dishes which formed a continuous rampart 
 between, shooting out spurs of still other crowded 
 tables that left scarce ten square feet of highway 
 between the four walls. Here and there a white 
 pillar rose to the roof, but never obstructed one s
 
 124 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 view of the ensemble, never curtailed one s share 
 in the show. 
 
 I looked about me like the veriest yokel in 
 Cosmopolis. There were French faces, German 
 faces, Russian faces; in one corner sat an un 
 mistakable Turk, who had not found it necessary 
 to conceal his nationality in Occidental clothing; 
 and, in another, beside an officer in the uniform 
 of a line regiment, sat a kimonoed Japanese girl 
 smoking a Maryland cigarette. And all the while 
 the red-coated orchestra was crashing away - 
 a brave, little Spaniard flourishing his tambourine 
 before them, or a sinuous woman of his race 
 dancing, with castagnettes in her hands, while all 
 the onlookers sang and snapped their fingers by 
 way of accompaniment. 
 
 For minutes I stood in the doorway motionless 
 until at last I got the eye of a gar con. 
 
 " But no," the bowing waiter declared, "it is 
 impossible to discover for monsieur a place vacant 
 in the chief apartment. The most one can do for 
 him is to offer this. Will monsieur follow? " 
 
 He led the way past the gay, laughing faces to 
 " this," which proved a pretty good second-best. 
 It was a place in a room separated from the main 
 salon only by a partition a few feet high, and, as 
 the particular little table to which I was ushered 
 faced this, I soon found myself so ensconced as to
 
 Au L Abbaye 125 
 
 be almost a part of the general gathering. I had 
 a full view of all the company, only partially 
 intercepted by the big, black hat of a woman that 
 was similarly seated, in the larger room, upon the 
 divan that ran along the other side of the low 
 wall. Her back was toward me, of course, and 
 
 across the rivulet of white cloth between them 
 
 her eyes were seemingly intent upon the man 
 who was evidently her host. 
 
 For some time I sat there, watching the moving 
 picture in front of me the running waiters, 
 flirting their white napkins or bobbing to the floor 
 to raise from its bucket of ice a bottle of cham 
 pagne ; the merry women, with their immaculately 
 old-young lovers ; the sweating musicians and 
 then, somehow, my glance rested on the man 
 facing me, across from the black-hatted woman, 
 and I saw that he was ummistakably an Austrian. 
 
 That he belonged to the race of my quest was 
 enough to rivet my attention. Tall, erectly 
 seated, with a pair of angry eyes and fierce, black 
 moustaches, a weather-beaten and rugged face, 
 I at once made up my mind that this man, in 
 spite of his plain evening clothes, was a soldier. 
 And I had just come to that conclusion when the 
 woman turned her profile toward me and I knew 
 that her companion was Colonel Lichtenstein. 
 
 For the woman was the Countess Stephanie
 
 126 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 Routkovsky. The profile had been turned for 
 only the glimpse of an instant, but that moment 
 had amply served. The pale face, as fine of feature 
 as if cut from Parian marble by a master s hand ; 
 the carefully chiseled temples; the delicately- 
 arched nose with its sensitive nostrils ; the straight, 
 dark brows; the black eyes; the haughty mouth, 
 a vivid line of scarlet it was the woman I had 
 been dreaming of, the woman whom, a few weeks 
 before in Frances Baird s darkened studio, I had 
 met as Gretchen Meyer. 
 
 Can you wonder that I tried to listen, after that? 
 I did try, at all events, and I thanked Heaven for 
 a brief lull in the music that enabled me to hear 
 her voice again. 
 
 " But, truly, you should not have come," she 
 was saying in her perfect English. " The risk is 
 too great." 
 
 Lichtenstein snorted, almost contemptuously. 
 
 " They do not even guess that we are in Paris," 
 he rumbled in a mighty but subdued bass. 
 
 At the risk of his observing me, I leaned far 
 forward to catch her answer, and I fancied a 
 certain weariness in her tone as she replied to 
 him: 
 
 "1 was not thinking of ourselves. I was 
 thinking of him. You are quite forgetting him: 
 you should have remained at his side."
 
 Au L Abbaye 127 
 
 The Colonel refilled his glass. 
 
 " I am not a jailor," he protested. 
 
 " No, not a jailor; but you are a man with a 
 duty," she corrected. " Why did you forget it? 
 Why did you come? " 
 
 Lichtenstein s features instantly softened - 
 and I did not like the change. 
 
 " Can t you guess? " he asked, bending toward 
 her across the narrow table and trying to temper 
 his voice to a milder note. " It was because I 
 knew that you were to be here : because 
 
 I saw him put out his heavy hand, and my heart 
 swelled with hate of him, but just then the red- 
 coated orchestra broke into the mattchiche, and 
 something happened that kept the Colonel s 
 hand suspended in mid-air. 
 
 Down at the very entrance of the room a single 
 high, discordant voice had taken up or tried 
 to take up the Paphian melody. Woefully 
 out of tune it sang, and it broke altogether on the 
 first high note, but under that and beyond, there 
 was a certain uncanny quality that rasped every 
 ear and brought upon the solitary singer the eye 
 of everyone in the two rooms such a ghost of 
 a voice it was, or, perhaps, a voice gone 
 mad. 
 
 " Ma jolie Dirc6 Choux-Choux, 
 Elle /ait
 
 128 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 The company roared in glee at the novelty, 
 but I heard the Countess gasp, and saw the 
 Colonel give one quick glance and then spring to 
 his feet. 
 
 My own would scarcely have borne me: the 
 singer stood alone by the main entrance; his 
 clothes were conventional; his newly cut hair 
 was brushed straight back, without any parting, 
 from his high, narrow forehead ; his face had been 
 freshly shaven; and in his eyes was the fire of 
 madness but for all that I knew him. 
 
 It was Wilhelm Jaeger.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A LEAN SPY AND A KEEN KNIFE 
 
 " Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall 
 be upon rumour." 
 
 MY own panic passed even more rapidly than 
 it had come and left me sharp and alert. The old 
 instinct of the reporter took command of me and 
 I was at once the calm and not unresourceful 
 Sammy Burton with whom I was best acquainted. 
 In a single breath I felt that, somehow, my grand 
 moment had at last arrived and had found me 
 ready for it. 
 
 Not so the Countess. Her face, turned toward 
 that mad apparition at the doorway, was in full 
 view, and I saw it changed as if momentarily 
 petrified, the black eyes were wide and rigid, 
 the very lips, but now scarlet, were gone white, 
 and the whole was a fixed mask of terror. 
 
 She half arose. 
 
 " I told you not to come! " she cried. 
 
 But LIchtenstein s rough hand which, a moment 
 before, had been raised in a caress, fell forcibly 
 upon her shoulder and pushed her back against 
 the cushions of the divan. 
 
 129
 
 130 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " It will be all right! " he muttered in a ready 
 German. " Keep quiet. Sit still." 
 
 He started to leave her and to advance to the 
 leering maniac, who still stood in his former place, 
 apparently well pleased with the applauding 
 company. The Countess, however, plucked at 
 her companion s sleeve, her face, as she spoke, 
 growing a little more composed. 
 
 "Very well," she said also in German. 
 " Pretend that he is drunk. But be careful. The 
 front may be watched. I know this place. Say 
 to Albert the proprietor the blond man over 
 there say to him that this person is a friend of 
 mine and must be taken out the rear way." 
 
 The Colonel nodded in ready comprehension. 
 
 " Good," he growled. Join us as soon as you 
 safely can." 
 
 With that he sailed into action, and even I had 
 to admire the skill with which he managed his 
 difficult task. I saw him approach the madman, 
 smiling the indulgent smile with which the man 
 of the world aids and insults a drunken comrade; 
 I saw him, in this new role, make his quick, reliant 
 way among the gossiping tables, nodding to the 
 laughing company; I saw him whisper a word to 
 Albert; I saw Albert bow, and then I saw him 
 seize the madman by the arm and, before his 
 victim had well recognized the assailant, I saw
 
 A Lean Spy and a Keen Knife 131 
 
 him bundle that victim through the door. Thus 
 much, I say, I watched admiringly, but there my 
 interest in Lichtenstein, at least for a time, ended : 
 his exit was my entrance-cue, and I took it with 
 out further delay. 
 
 Quite as suddenly as the Colonel had gone, I 
 came into the main room and slipped into the 
 seat that he had just left the seat across the 
 table from the Countess. 
 
 " Fraulein," I said, bowing in as matter-of-fact 
 fashion as I could just then muster, " it is indeed 
 so pleasant a surprise for me to see you here that 
 I cannot but ask the honour of one little word of 
 recognition." 
 
 It was clumsy irony, of course, but, even so, 
 it was too subtle to bash its way into an intelli 
 gence still stunned by the terror that I had just 
 witnessed. The Countess did not understand a 
 word of it. Slowly she drew her gaze from the 
 now empty doorway and, quite as slowly, fixed 
 it upon me. 
 
 " Perhaps," I stupidly pursued, " you do not 
 pay me the compliment of recognition. 1 beg 
 then, mademoiselle, to recall to you the fact that I 
 had the privilege of a presentation to you not long 
 since at the rooms, in Philadelphia, of my friend, 
 Miss Baird." 
 
 I had not thought it possible for her terror to
 
 132 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 be intensified, but, as I spoke, I saw, in the marble 
 of her face, a quick spasm of recognition that told 
 of a new agony of fright. Yet I was being ridden 
 by that imp of perversity, which, at such moments, 
 delights to ride us and goad the tongue to wound 
 ing what the heart most loves. 
 
 " It is true," I pursued, " that on that occasion 
 you did not care to see much of me, but I had dared 
 to hope, after what I have just observed in this 
 room, that you might now be better inclined " 
 
 And right there in the midst of my half -taunting 
 sentence I stopped short. The face opposite me 
 had undergone another change a quick soften 
 ing. A row of white teeth were buried in the lower 
 lip ; the great black eyes were filled with tears 
 the Countess was crying. 
 
 Instantly my hand shot out to her in mute 
 appeal, and then, when she still sat there, rigid, 
 speechless, fighting back her tears, I stammered : 
 
 " Forgive me! I I don t know why I spoke 
 so, mademoiselle. I give you my word that I 
 came here only to help you. Tell me what I 
 can do." 
 
 For a long moment she fixed me with her eyes. 
 
 You can do nothing," she whispered. 
 
 " But I must. You are in trouble, and I have 
 helped to hurt you. If only in order to show me 
 that I have your forgiveness, mademoiselle
 
 A Lean Spy and a Keen Knife 133 
 
 " You have my forgiveness," she said softly. 
 
 " Then, if only to prove that, permit me to 
 help you now to-night." 
 
 Once more she studied me, her great black eyes 
 looking searchingly into mine, and once more she 
 shook her head. 
 
 " No," she said in those deep, contralto notes 
 that had so thrilled me when I heard them first; 
 " I cannot endanger any more of those who wish 
 me well. I thank you, my friend, from my heart, 
 and I myself" -and she smiled sadly- "I 
 myself make an apology for the way in which I 
 seemed to treat you on the evening that you have 
 but now mentioned. It is true, what you say: 
 I am in a little trouble. But it is a little trouble 
 only and I must get away from it alone." 
 
 " Mademoiselle," I protested, " you force me 
 to make you accept my offer of assistance. 
 Mademoiselle, I know more than you suppose." 
 
 Again she smiled gently. 
 
 " But not the truth," she said. " No one seems 
 now to have the truth. You find me indeed so 
 surrounded by treachery that I am suspicious 
 of even those who should be my stanchest allies 
 so deceived, I fear, by my very friends that I 
 can scarcely hope for good offices from one whom 
 I have met but once and whom at that time I 
 treated so shabbily."
 
 134 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 Protest was still ready on my tongue when one 
 of her phrases struck the alarm-bell of my con 
 science. I recollected, in a flash, that I was 
 enlisted on the other side, that this woman was 
 one of the criminals that I had crossed the ocean 
 to find and that, could I only compel myself to 
 have the eye of truth, I should see drops of blood 
 upon the little, jewelled hand that lay so close to 
 my own. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," I said stiffly, " your refusal 
 is so final that I must, I suppose, accept it." 
 And I made as if to rise. 
 
 The Countess raised her proud head. Our 
 glances met again and in her eyes there was that 
 which kept me in my chair. 
 
 " I understand," she said quietly, her eyes 
 unwaveringly fixed on mine : You believe 
 what you cannot help believing. Go, then, I 
 have not at any time sought to detain you." 
 
 I writhed. 
 
 " I admit it, mademoiselle," I said. " I 
 honestly wanted to help you before I remem 
 bered before I came entirely to myself. It 
 is the height of folly for me to confess even so 
 much as this but, oh, remember how you came 
 to us how you told us the details of a crime 
 almost twelve hours before it was committed 
 how, when it was committed, those details were
 
 A Lean Spy and a Keen Knife 135 
 
 all just as you had described them to Frances 
 Baird and me! " 
 
 I stopped short, but she only nodded gravely. 
 
 " Hang it all! " I cried. " Can t you, won t you 
 explain it away? Can t you, at least, tell me that 
 I am mad? " 
 
 " I can tell you, monsieur, that I thank you 
 sincerely for being so good as to want to believe 
 well of me, and then I can say to you only 
 Good night. " 
 
 She raised her hand and, for just a fleeting 
 instant, touched mine where it lay clenched upon 
 the table that separated us. It was the merest 
 touch, the unconscious signal of regretful parting, 
 but the thought of the blood upon her pulsing 
 fingers troubled me no more. In that second I 
 flung everything else overboard and in the next 
 second I was glad of it. 
 
 " No," I answered, " not Good night. " I 
 sought to retain the little hand, but it had vanished 
 as it had come, and I continued: " I do not only 
 want to believe well of you, mademoiselle I do 
 believe." 
 
 Her face flashed into radiance. 
 
 " Then," she said conclusively, " I ask no more 
 of you. You will do your duty on the side in 
 which you are enlisted; but at least I have a 
 gallant foe."
 
 136 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " About doing my duty, I ll think later. I can 
 not, of course, tell you any more of my mission - 
 or what was my mission than you feel that you 
 may tell me of yours, but I shall say that only this 
 evening I learned just how great your danger 
 really is. I learned " 
 
 " No more," she interrupted, lifting her hand 
 with a motion of finality, " you must not desert 
 your cause." 
 
 But this time it was for me to regard her, 
 looking deep into her black eyes. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," I solemnly declared, " I tell 
 you truly that I am a free-lance and that I am 
 altogether at your service." 
 
 " I cannot permit it," she insisted. 
 
 " But at least, though, you are going to allow 
 me to help you to-night. I heard you say to your 
 companion that this place may be watched. Oh, 
 believe me, not by anyone to whom I owe alle 
 giance ! Yet I understand that the pressing need 
 of this moment is that you leave here unseen and 
 soon. Let me aid you in this." 
 
 She sat silent for a moment, her chin in her hand, 
 her red lips firm and sweet and two lines of thought 
 between her even brows. 
 
 Yes," she admitted at last. " I may need your 
 help, and I shall let you give it. Listen : I must 
 drive from this place and it is better that I go
 
 A Lean Spy and a Keen Knife 137 
 
 boldly. Yet my cab may be followed. You, there 
 fore, must go with me, giving an address that is 
 within not less than a street of my real one. There 
 I shall dismount quickly and so, going the re 
 mainder of the way afoot, I shall escape whatever 
 man might follow us in another cab, while you 
 drive on to your hotel. You observe, my friend, 
 that I dare trust not even the drivers. Will you 
 come? " 
 
 For answer to her question I beckoned the 
 waiter. 
 
 " Mademoiselle s wraps," I commanded. 
 
 And when I turned to her again, I found her 
 smiling once more not now in sadness, but, 
 though tenderly, yet with a radiance that lighted 
 her whole, lovely face as with a wistful glory. 
 
 You tempt me," she said, " to enlist you 
 further. Such loyal readiness to serve an unknown 
 cause one finds it not everywhere, monsieur." 
 
 " Mademoiselle," I replied, " if you would only 
 try me, you would learn what loyalty really is." 
 
 She would have answered, but the waiter had 
 returned with her long, evening cloak, and would 
 have held it for her had I not snatched it, some 
 what roughly, I am afraid, from his grasp. 
 
 I wonder even now if she knew with what a 
 thrill I wrapped it about her shoulders; if she 
 must not have felt, through its soft, clinging folds,
 
 138 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 the caress of my hands, the reverence of my dumb, 
 adoring heart ! Perhaps for it was not until 
 we were half way down the stairs that she spoke. 
 
 " The driver," she said quickly then, returning 
 thus to the practical features of our escape; " you 
 will tell him, please, that he is to drive to the corner 
 of the Rue Vivienne and the Rue du 4 Septembre." 
 
 I had put out my hand, turning at the last step 
 to look up at her. 
 
 " And your own address? " I asked. 
 
 For only answer to this she put her gloved finger 
 tips lightly upon my open palm and then raised 
 the finger of silence to her scarlet lips. 
 
 " That," she replied to me, " is one of the secrets 
 that you must leave to me, Mr. Burton." 
 
 " Then you don t quite trust me even now? " 
 
 Something in my tone must have touched a 
 wrong chord. Her proud chin shot upward and 
 her eyes snapped fire. 
 
 " I try your faith," said she in sudden French. 
 " Monsieur must understand that some of my 
 secrets are not mine alone and, if he refuses, 
 he must recall to himself that his offices were 
 offered before I asked for them." 
 
 There was always that about her which kept 
 the temperature of a conversation constantly on 
 the move the mercury was never long stationary 
 and I always followed it. Just now I knew at
 
 A Lean Spy and a Keen Knife 139 
 
 once that I had been guilty of some heinous 
 offence. 
 
 "I I beg your pardon," I stammered apol- 
 getically. You ll forgive me won t you? 
 Confound it," I broke off, as her face remained 
 unrelaxed, " you must forgive me! - And there 
 I stopped short, for she had broken into ready 
 laughter. 
 
 " Go," she commanded. " Order the cab 
 nearest at hand." 
 
 There was a line of them those Parisian 
 night-hawks at the very door, and I had no 
 sooner put my foot on the pavement than a 
 half-dozen drivers were cocking their heads at 
 me. I looked about hurriedly ; noted that, other 
 wise, the street appeared deserted, and then 
 chose the driver whose vehicle stood opposite 
 our path of exit. A moment later, I had given 
 him the address that the Countess had named 
 and, with that lady deliciously close beside me, 
 was clattering through the wooden-paved dark 
 ness. 
 
 For quite a while I dared not trust myself to 
 speak. To sit there, so near to her the woman 
 who, I now realized, had all the while floated 
 through the golden background of my dreams 
 to see the white mystery of her figure, to have the 
 very perfume of her being in my nostrils and to
 
 140 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 feel, like delicate throbs of pain, the proximity of 
 her body we two, shut out from all the world 
 by the night that only now and then a street-lamp 
 pierced, painting her living reality against the 
 cushions that was something I dreaded would 
 fade, as all my previous dreams had faded, before 
 material speech. 
 
 But again it was the necessity of our situation 
 that forced me back upon the practical plane. 
 
 " I feel sure," said I finally, " that our pre 
 caution was useless. The street seemed empty." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 That emptiness signifies nothing, my friend," 
 she explained almost sadly, I thought. " My 
 enemies are of a sort nearly invisible." 
 
 " But why," I persisted, " if you were afraid of 
 being followed, did you come to a public cafe" 
 to-night? " 
 
 " I feared nothing when I went there. It was 
 something that occurred after my arrival that 
 something which, of course, you observed 
 that awoke my fears." 
 
 " But why then " 
 
 " My friend " - she turned toward me, and I 
 felt, with a sudden catch in my throat, the touch 
 of her hand upon my arm. "I may think of 
 you as my friend, may I not? " 
 
 She could have called me almost anything she
 
 A Lean Spy and a Keen Knife 141 
 
 chose and I think she must have known it 
 but all I could do was to nod. 
 
 " Then, my friend," she pursued, with that deep, 
 contralto note in her voice that set my heart 
 strings into a responding quaver, " it may be 
 that to-morrow I shall tell you all. Be patient 
 to-night, and I promise that, if all goes well, I 
 shall, to-morrow evening at eleven o clock, be at 
 the same table that we have left but now." 
 
 My whole soul leaped up to thank her. But - 
 to-morrow? Why, to-morrow in twenty-four 
 hours in twelve hours even to-night, per 
 haps the ambassador s trap might close its 
 steel teeth upon her the end of all things might 
 well be waiting beyond any tick of the watch! 
 
 I resolved again to fling all prejudice at the 
 winds of desire. 
 
 " You are good," I said, " and I thank you. 
 But even you do not know the dangers that lie 
 in wait for you between now and then." 
 
 " I know far more than you guess, monsieur," 
 she said. 
 
 " But not all that I can tell you." 
 
 " At least quite all that you can tell me without 
 breaking faith with your allies." 
 
 " Faith? " I cried. " What is faith worth when, 
 to keep it, I may be imperilling you when, to 
 keep it, I may "
 
 142 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " Faith is worth just this," she calmly inter 
 rupted: " it is worth my trust in you." 
 
 " But it is just that " 
 
 " It is just that I could trust no man that cannot 
 be true to his own people." 
 
 I felt the merited lash that she gave me and I 
 bowed to it despairingly. 
 
 " Yet this I must say," I protested : " the thing 
 that has made you suddenly afraid is the fact of 
 this Wilhelm Jaeger s appearance at the cafe". 
 You fear don t you that, through this public 
 appearance, his whereabouts may become known 
 to your enemies? " 
 
 " Yes," she replied slowly, " that is what I 
 fear." 
 
 " And you hope that your friends 
 
 " Say rather my colleagues." 
 
 " That your colleagues will be able to get this 
 man out of Paris some time to-morrow? " 
 
 " That is our plan." 
 
 " Then I must tell you that it is impossible. 
 It is already known that you and he are somewhere 
 in this city and every railway-station, every 
 possible avenue of exit, is watched! " 
 
 As if to punctuate my words, the sudden gleam 
 of a street-lamp fell upon her face and I saw again 
 there the look of white terror that I had first 
 observed in L Abbaye. Then, as the blackness
 
 A Lean Spy and a Keen Knife 143 
 
 enveloped us once more, she laughed a hard, 
 hopeless little laugh. 
 
 " In that case," she said in a burst of bitter 
 lightness, " nothing matters. You must not tell 
 me any more, my friend indeed, what you 
 have already said reveals all that I did not already 
 know. And now, nothing in the world matters. 
 We are nearly arrived. Promise me that you 
 will be as loyal now as you were in the beginning." 
 
 " I promise," I whispered to her. 
 
 " That when I leave this cab, you will not 
 follow no matter what happens unless I 
 call?" 
 
 She held her hand toward me and I bowed over 
 it. 
 
 " I promise," I repeated. 
 
 " And that from here you will drive straight to 
 your hotel? " 
 
 " I promise," I said for the third time. 
 
 Then, Mr. Burton, I shall take the risk and 
 keep with you my appointment for to-morrow 
 evening." 
 
 The cab stopped. We were at the dark corners 
 she had named. The street was absolutely empty. 
 
 I leaped out. I helped the Countess to the curb. 
 
 " Good night," I whispered. 
 
 " Look! " she cried. 
 
 I wheeled, my eyes following her pointing finger:
 
 144 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 uncurling itself from the springs of our cab there 
 was rising the figure of a man. 
 
 I made one leap upon him, just as he got to his 
 feet, and let him have a left-swing to the head that 
 sent him hurtling against the wheel. Then, as 
 he came back to me in a kind of rubber rebound, 
 I flung up my right. 
 
 " La Savate! " I heard the Countess cry behind 
 me, but it was too late a swift shimmer of his 
 boot in the lamp-light and he had laid me, 
 groaning, upon the sidewalk. 
 
 For a moment I could not have stirred if eternal 
 welfare had been the reward. In a sick daze I 
 saw that the Countess had started to run down 
 the street; that the stolid cabbie sat motionless 
 upon his box, and that the wretched little spy was 
 dashing after my companion. Then, still in the 
 haze of nausea after the kick, I saw her, evidently 
 realizing that to retreat farther would be but to 
 disclose her address, stop short, whereat the spy, 
 with one bound more, was full upon her, his hands 
 at her throat. 
 
 How I did it I do not know. My head was still 
 swimming and my whole body in contracted 
 agony, but somehow I was on my feet the instant 
 he came up with her, and somehow, an instant 
 later, I had grabbed the cur by the collar and 
 swung him to the wall of the nearest house, closing
 
 A Lean Spy and a Keen Knife 145 
 
 in against another vicious coup de pied and, with 
 one turn of the wrist, forcing him to let clatter 
 to the ground the knife that he had drawn as 
 I seized him. 
 
 " Now, mademoiselle," I said, gasping a bit, 
 but serenely conscious of victory; " you may go 
 in safety. I regret that our position makes it 
 imperative that I shall neither kill our little 
 friend, nor even hand him over to a sergent de 
 mile, but I shall at least have no difficulty in 
 keeping him entertained until you are quite out 
 of sight." 
 
 She looked at me with grateful eyes that repaid 
 everything. 
 
 " I shall not forget," she said quietly and once 
 again held out her hand. 
 
 I bent and kissed it, my own fingers firm about 
 that fellow s bull neck. 
 
 " Adieu," I said. 
 
 " No," she corrected, laughing as she turned 
 away, " your French is inaccurate." And then, 
 over her shoulder, she added: " Au revoir."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE RAID ON THE EMBASSY 
 
 " For thy mouth uttereth thine iniquity, and thou choosest 
 the tongue of the crafty. 
 
 "Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I: yea, 
 thine own lips testify against thee." 
 
 I WAITED until the darkness had swallowed up 
 her footsteps, and then tossed my captive over 
 into the light of the cab-lamp. 
 
 He was my friend Cross-Eye of the Austrian 
 embassy. 
 
 " So," I thought, " I wonder, now, my man, 
 whether you followed me all the way from the 
 Rue de Varenne." And aloud, in French, I 
 added: Who was it that sent you on this 
 pleasant little mission, the Baron, Czibulka, or 
 both?" 
 
 His answer was only a torrent of what must have 
 been curses in a tongue that must have been 
 Czeck. 
 
 I gave him a little shake just to jolt his intel 
 ligence. 
 
 " Come," I said, " my French was good enough 
 
 146
 
 The Raid on the Embassy 147 
 
 for you to understand it a few hours ago. Speak 
 up, and answer my question! " 
 
 But he only shook his head, and, as he persisted 
 in this pose, I had nothing to do but submit. 
 
 " Very well," I grumbled, " I should prefer a 
 companion whom I could talk to with some hope 
 of replies from him, but, since that s impossible, 
 we shall have to make the best of a bad bargain, 
 and keep silence." 
 
 And with that I tossed him into the cab, told 
 the driver to drive anywhere for a quarter of an 
 hour, at the end of which time, while we were 
 still going at a fair pace, I dumped the little 
 fellow into the street and, finally, proceeded to 
 my hotel for the last surprise of the evening. 
 
 It was waiting for me in the half -lighted passage 
 outside of my room and its name was Frances 
 Baird. 
 
 " Good Heavens!" I cried " I thought you 
 had gone to bed hours ago. Don t you know it s 
 nearly morning? What in the world has been 
 happening now? " 
 
 " Open your door," she said laughing a little, 
 " and then I may answer one of your questions 
 at a time." 
 
 I obeyed and, when I had snapped on the elec 
 tricity and had lighted a cigarette, Frances, seated 
 by the curtained window, began her story.
 
 148 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " I did mean to go to bed," she declared. 
 " And I turned in just after you left for the boule 
 vards. If you care to cross the hall and take a 
 look at my room, you ll find I ve told the truth. - 
 But I just couldn t sleep. I believed more and 
 more that we d been told a pretty pack of lies 
 by the ambassador, and it was impossible for me 
 to rest before I had proved it." 
 
 "And so " 
 
 " And so I robbed the embassy." 
 
 I dropped my cigarette : You robbed - 
 
 Tried to, at any rate. The crime is in the 
 intent, you know and this was at least felonious 
 entry. 
 
 " But why ?" 
 
 " Because I had an idea that if the truth were 
 anywhere and I begin now to doubt that it is 
 then the Baron s secret papers would be the place 
 to seek it." 
 
 " And you actually robbed the house? " 
 
 Frances s voice became petulant. 
 
 " See here, Sammy," she demurred, " do you 
 want to hear this story, or don t you? If you 
 don t, I shall not tell it; but if you do, you must 
 not interrupt me again." 
 
 I threw up my hands in token of surrender and 
 she continued : 
 
 " It s not the first work of this sort that I have
 
 The Raid on the Embassy 149 
 
 had to try, and, against just such sort of circum 
 stances, I always carry a more or less complete 
 set of burglar s tools as a regular part of my 
 travelling-kit. That you perhaps did not know. 
 You do know, however, that I have also with me 
 on my little trips a comfortable Norfolk jacket 
 and knickerbockers. These I put on this evening. 
 Then I got your raincoat over them, and left the 
 hotel with the tools in the coat-pocket. 
 
 " As soon as I got in the neighbourhood of the 
 embassy, I chucked the coat into a dark corner 
 and began to look over the ground. First of all, 
 of course, I made for the window that Czibulka 
 broke this evening; it was, just as I had expected, 
 covered only by light boards, but it was too ex 
 posed, so I gave up that line of attack without any 
 more delay and began to inspect the burglar 
 alarms, only to find that the house was thor 
 oughly wired. 
 
 " That was annoying, of course, but it was 
 hardly to be considered a final set-back, for I 
 turned my attention at once to the house next 
 door and found that there, at least, the inhabit 
 ants weren t so horribly suspicious of mankind - 
 or," she smiled, " womankind. This place was, 
 in fact, free from any wiring whatever, and I 
 made an entry easily enough by picking the crude 
 lock to a basement door. From there it was no
 
 150 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 trouble to make my way to the roof and, as this 
 roof was only about four feet higher than that of 
 the embassy, I was soon tiptoeing through the 
 darkness over our unsuspecting Baron s head. 
 
 " It didn t take me very long to find what I 
 was after : the wire that must connect the embassy 
 with the police-station, or whatever corresponds 
 to a police-station in this benighted city, came up 
 by the cluster of chimney-pots, and I first clipped 
 it completely and then, just not to overlook any 
 bets, I snipped the telephone wires as well. A 
 few minutes more and I had stumbled over a 
 trap-door that wasn t wired, fortunately, and so 
 got to the loft and, at last, to the stairway. 
 
 " It was pitch black and I didn t dare to use 
 my light, but, once I had got my shoes off and 
 slung them, by the strings, over my shoulder, I 
 didn t much care, for I knew that all these older 
 French houses are built on the same plan and, 
 if I could only reach the ground floor without 
 spilling myself noisily, I was sure of being able 
 to walk directly to the ambassador s office where 
 we had our little conversation with him a few hours 
 before. 
 
 " I did it, too. Oh, there was an adventure or 
 so on the way ! Once I encountered a sudden turn 
 in the stairs, and the steps, naturally, creaked 
 frightfully, but I stopped for a good five minutes
 
 The Raid on the Embassy 151 
 
 after every sound and, considering that I am rather 
 an amateur at burglary, I think I made a pretty 
 successful journey. 
 
 " Inside the office everything was precisely as 
 we last saw it. I had noticed, during my former 
 call, that the safe was a miserably old-fashioned 
 affair and now, as soon as I got my electric glow 
 on it, I found that the lock was a mere common 
 place contrivance that would hardly stop a child. 
 It was so old that anybody with a well-trained 
 ear couldn t have helped but hear the catches 
 fall, and in not a second more than fifteen minutes, 
 I had the door open and was going through the 
 private papers of the Baron de Hetzendorf. 
 
 " But I didn t learn much. Many of them were 
 entirely personal even intimate in fact, I 
 unearthed enough to get the Baroness (if there 
 is a Baroness) three or four divorces; but that 
 was not exactly what I was after. Then again a 
 lot were in cipher, and there wasn t time to 
 bother with prize puzzles. What was then left 
 seemed to be the sort of thing that would be of no 
 end of interest to diplomats in general, but about 
 our particular little murder-party, there was not 
 a scratch that came under my eyes, though I 
 searched everywhere, until 
 
 Well, until I heard a slight sound on the 
 stairs.
 
 152 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " Sammy, I think you know that I am not of a 
 nervous temperament I ve outgrown it but, 
 upon my word, as I knelt there in that silent room, 
 with a glow-light in one hand and a revolver in 
 the other, an open safe in front of me and a heap 
 of papers at my feet as I knelt there and heard 
 that sudden creak out of the blackness beyond the 
 frail room-door the blackness full of enemies, 
 who wouldn t hesitate a moment about what 
 was the correct way to deal with an intruder like 
 me as I knelt there, I tell you, Sammy, I 
 shook like a sweet girl graduate. 
 
 " Then I snapped out my light and listened. 
 For some time or, surely, for quite a dozen 
 booming heart-beats ! the stillness ached along 
 unbroken. But it didn t fool me, because I am 
 something of a connoisseur in the various brands 
 of silence and I knew immediately that, as the 
 former had been the sleeping, so this was the wide 
 awake kind. I can t tell you just what it is that 
 makes the difference, but a real difference there 
 is, and this time I knew it at once: out there in 
 the house somebody was sneaking down the 
 stairs the foot of which was just outside that 
 door. 
 
 " I couldn t have hesitated long after that. It 
 took me almost no time at all to bundle up those 
 papers and slam them into the safe and just
 
 The Raid on the Embassy 153 
 
 as I was going to close the door, I heard that 
 sound again. 
 
 " Well, it was better anyhow, for a safe-door 
 that is just swung to may be the result of care 
 lessness, and may even go unnoticed for hours, 
 but the safe-door that closes with a snap in the 
 dead of night is apt to send out something of a 
 sound. Anyhow, what I did was to swing to that 
 piece of iron and make a hop-skip-and-jump to 
 the very curtain that had so conveniently shel 
 tered our Czeck friend during a part of our call 
 on the ambassador. 
 
 " It wasn t an original procedure, I grant you 
 that, Sammy, but it seemed the only course left 
 me. The other windows aren t so well curtained 
 and the door would have been just where I should 
 have met whomever or whatever it was that 
 was on the stairs. Anyhow, I did it -and I 
 wasn t a quarter of a second too soon: my head 
 was still out of the curtain when the step outside 
 came again, quite plainly this time, and halted 
 just before the office. Then the door creaked 
 slowly on its hinges ; it opened, and a shadow - 
 a kind of double blackness slipped into the 
 room and across it. I held my breath, but kept 
 my eyes staring: I saw the shadow stop before 
 the safe ; I saw a spot-light flare up and show the 
 lock and in that streak of light I saw the man.
 
 154 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " It was Czibulka. 
 
 " I don t know whether the gypsy was angry or 
 not. He had a right to be, at any rate, for he had 
 found that safe open and he evidently thought 
 that he was face to face with the proof of some 
 gross carelessness on the part of whatever clerk 
 whose duty it is to set that room in order when it 
 is closed for the night. But in any case, our friend 
 didn t waste time in scolding clerks that were 
 doubtless abed : he had clearly come there to rob 
 the place himself, and he at once set about his 
 business. 
 
 " He set about it too quickly altogether. I 
 saw that at once. The hurried way in which he 
 fumbled among those papers and tossed and tum 
 bled them made me sure that something was soon 
 bound to happen and soon something did. 
 
 " His trembling hands picked up a tin dispatch- 
 box and let it fall crashing to the hard wood floor. 
 
 " He snapped out his light immediately, and 
 there was a long, horrid pause. 
 
 " Just fancy it, Sammy. There we were: two 
 thieves, a spy spying upon a spy, in a pitch black 
 room, the house full of dangers, and the sudden 
 alarm still ringing in loud overtones in our ears. 
 
 " I was pressed tight back behind my curtains. 
 My own breath was altogether suspended, but I 
 could hear Czibulka s, coming out of the midnight
 
 The Raid on the Embassy 155 
 
 obscurity, several feet away, where he must have 
 been crouching like a wild beast in some sort of 
 fierce panic. I don t know how he stood it; I m 
 sure that I couldn t have stood it much longer - 
 I should have shrieked like any ordinary woman - 
 but at last, at the instant when the agony climbed 
 up to my throat and tore at it, the end came like 
 a lightning-stroke. 
 
 " Without a single warning-sound from outside, 
 the room was flooded with light, and, there, in 
 the open doorway, stood the ambassador, fully 
 dressed, his revolver levelled at the terrified 
 Czibulka s head. 
 
 " It was a tableau well worth risking a good deal 
 to see. The old Baron is the genuine thing, and 
 there s no mistake about that, for there he was 
 with death in his hand and death threatening 
 him, and not a line of his old eagle-face showed 
 even a twitch of surprise. Just a yard or two away 
 was Czibulka, half risen, his eyes wide with 
 fright, his own gun clutched in a spasmodic grip, 
 but clutched a second too late. It was quite a 
 breathing-spell before I realized that my head 
 must be half way out between those curtains, and 
 it was even an instant later that I got it back 
 into safe hiding again. 
 
 " An interminable time seemed to pass before 
 anyone uttered a word. Then I heard the am-
 
 156 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 bassador, talking in his best and most dignified 
 French, say: 
 
 " Put down your weapon, my friend. 
 
 " Czibulka s revolver clattered to the floor as if 
 it were the very echo of the Baron s command. 
 
 " I suppose, the Baron went on, after another 
 long pause, in which I knew that he was boring 
 holes through the little man of the scar, I sup 
 pose that the proper guard of this room is in your 
 pay. At all events, I do not care to risk an 
 interruption, so I shall be obliged to take your 
 weapon and lock the door. 
 
 " I heard him do this, and then I heard him, 
 still in French, continue: 
 
 " Now, sir, what have you to say for your 
 self? 
 
 " Czibulka must have squirmed physically. 
 He surely squirmed intellectually, for he jabbered 
 out appeals and contradictions so fast that I 
 couldn t follow him at all, especially as part of 
 them were in bad German and the rest, I imagine, 
 in Czeck. But the ambassador was as hard as 
 nails. 
 
 " It is of no use, sir, he declared; you may 
 take my word for that. Moreover, I have but to 
 press this button either to waken the servants or 
 to turn you over to the gendarmes. One or 
 other of these things I shall certainly do ira-
 
 The Raid on the Embassy 157 
 
 mediately, unless you make a full confession to 
 me. Come ! 
 
 " That fetched Czibulka. He gave up his 
 whole soul and, as the Baron had stuck to 
 the language of diplomacy, Bolfras Czibulka 
 also adopted it, and I understood every word. 
 
 :< It seems that the gypsy has, as I hinted this 
 afternoon, been playing a double game. The 
 other side, as he calls them and by that I 
 suppose he means the Countess, the Colonel and 
 their allies suppose him to be with them, 
 whereas he has all along been hunting with the 
 hounds and running with the hares, in order to 
 sell out at the last moment to whichever party 
 would bid the higher figure, or seemed the more 
 likely to win. 
 
 " He admitted that he had told the Countess, 
 as soon as he himself had been informed of it, 
 all about what he characterized as the murder 
 at Mountville. Then he said that he had fallen 
 ill, just as the Baron told us. That, of course, 
 changed the date of the killing, but, also, of course, 
 prohibited Czibulka from telling the Countess of 
 the postponement. There you have the explana 
 tion of her curious call on me, and her fore 
 knowledge of the crime, of course, being afraid 
 herself to go to the scene of the murder to recover 
 the papers when she fancied the place would be
 
 158 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 under the eye of the police, who would have been 
 brought there by the assassination. 
 
 " So far, so good. But then followed a dialogue 
 of which I don t even now, after thinking on it 
 ever since, seem able to grasp the true inwardness. 
 As soon as I saw that it touched another mystery, 
 I tried to remember every single word of it, and 
 I think that it ran thus : 
 
 " How did it happen, asked the Baron, that 
 you did not, in the first place, let them know of 
 the plan in time to prevent the killing? 
 
 " Because, said Czibulka, and he was 
 almost sobbing now the disgusting, little pig! 
 
 because I was not told of it until the last 
 moment. I did know, however, that the Countess 
 was on her way to Mountville, and so got into 
 touch with her at the earliest possible time 
 which was when she was at her Philadelphia 
 hotel. I thought then that by the time she heard 
 from me it would be all over, and that I should 
 still be keeping faith with her by telling her so. 
 To add colour to my appearance of loyalty to 
 " the other side," I told her to look up this Baird 
 woman, of whom I had heard in Washington, 
 and to commission her to recover the proofs of 
 .the dead man s identity. These, I pointed out, 
 we knew were in a certain dispatch-box and 
 would be at least some sort of weapon, even if
 
 The Raid on the Embassy 159 
 
 not so good as the man himself though all the 
 while I felt sure that our agent would have made 
 away with them. 
 
 "And then? 
 
 Then I was delayed, and got to the farm a 
 day late, and everything went wrong. I reached 
 the house while the two were on their way to 
 the post-office, but they came back much sooner 
 than I had expected just as I told you before : 
 The Prince wanted to go up-stairs I heard him 
 say so. There was a scuffle and he killed our 
 man. 
 
 You must have chosen a weakling. 
 I do not think so, monsieur. Besides, I 
 did not choose him; the chief did that: I never 
 saw him until I ran down the stairs and found 
 him dead, with the Prince standing over him and 
 denouncing me. - - They both looked strong 
 enough then, but the Prince had the double 
 strength of madness. 
 
 He always had, you remember. 
 
 " I had never set eyes on him. I had been in 
 school in England from my fifth year until - 
 
 " Exactly. Go on with your story. 
 
 " There was only one safe course for me, and 
 that I had to take quickly. With much cajoling, 
 however, I succeeded with it: I convinced this 
 lunatic that I was his friend, not the friend of the
 
 160 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 dead man; I wired the news to the Countess s 
 New York hotel ; I saw him safe to Philadelphia, 
 where she met us, and then I returned to Wash 
 ington and made my report to our Government. 
 
 Your false report, corrected the Baron. 
 It was false, monsieur, in only one par 
 ticular. 
 
 Hum. Yes : the rather important par 
 ticular that the Prince was handed over by you 
 to our enemies, instead of escaping from you, as 
 you had informed us. --Well, I suppose you 
 know what you deserve. 
 
 " Czibulka acknowledged that he did know 
 what he deserved, and the Baron promptly 
 assured him that he would get it. Then the Czeck 
 threw another fit, and the ambassador told him 
 that the only way of gaining a pardon was for 
 the little fellow, to-morrow midnight, to turn 
 over to the embassy s forces the man they had 
 been calling the Prince, and to turn over the 
 Prince s present keepers along with him. 
 
 Well, Czibulka said this was impossible. 
 He said that he had never known the Paris 
 address of the Countess and her allies. The 
 original arrangement that he had made in 
 parting with her and the Prince in Philadelphia 
 was that he should meet her at ten o clock 
 to-morrow evening at L Abbaye, in the Place
 
 The Raid on the Embassy 161 
 
 Pigalle, and that she was at that time to give to 
 him the address of their Moscow headquarters, 
 because, during the day preceding (which, I 
 take it, meant sometime during the day that is 
 now looking in at these windows) the Colonel 
 was to start with his mad ward for Russia. 
 
 " But I had to conclude that the Baron 
 wouldn t be a pleasant man to work for; he has 
 not any slightest use for excuses. He just told 
 Czibulka that the latter could easily do the trick, 
 because, next evening, the gang would either 
 be in the city or else have fallen already into the 
 hands of the embassy s forces. This, he said, 
 was so, because all the railways are watched 
 and the octroi so packed with his agents that 
 escape from Paris would be entirely out of the 
 question. 
 
 " Come, now, he said, this is my bargain: 
 if we catch them by our means, you are to pay 
 with your life; if they have reason to fear 
 that we are watching, and if they, therefore, 
 remain in Paris, then you get their address from 
 the Countess to-morrow evening, and so save 
 yourself on condition, my friend, that you 
 return immediately to the United States and 
 give to that country the benefit of your citizen 
 ship for ever! 
 
 " Czibulka tried hard to get out of it; he
 
 162 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 endeavoured to show that the chances were too 
 heavily in favour of an attempted escape by 
 rail or motor, but the Baron only laughed. 
 
 It is a better chance than you are entitled 
 to, he said and I most certainly agree with 
 him ! As a matter of fact, it is better than 
 you guess, for, a quarter of an hour ago, my man, 
 Schram Revicta, telephoned me that he had come 
 across the Countess s trail only to be detected 
 and thrown off by the young newspaper re 
 porter that was here this afternoon, and who, 
 of course, has told her of what I foolishly let 
 out about the guarded railways. Now then, 
 are you willing to take your chance? 
 
 That about ends my story. Czibulka 
 grovelled a bit and swore fidelity to which 
 the ambassador replied that treachery would be 
 quite impossible, because he would be shadowed 
 from that moment forward, only to be killed 
 at the first token of revolt, and that, to begin 
 with, he must be placed at once under guard. 
 And then well, then they got out of the room 
 and I forced the boards of that window and made 
 tracks for this hotel."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CAUGHT IN THE NET 
 
 " Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest 
 not what a day may bring forth." 
 
 FRANCES ended her story with a long sigh. 
 
 " There," she declared, " you have it all and, 
 before you say what you make of it, you may as 
 well tell me how you happened to meet up with 
 the Countess and what trouble you ve got into." 
 
 I obeyed as well as I could, and then we sat 
 on until the cold, Parisian dawn shivered through 
 the windows, threshing over together all the 
 developments of the preceding night. 
 
 What was the truth ? How much of it had we 
 been told and how much that had been said to 
 us had been but diplomatic falsehood? Who 
 was this Prince about whom so strange and so 
 silent a battle was raging in this centre of a 
 peaceful civilization? What cause was at stake 
 that could force so beautiful a woman as the 
 Countess Routkovsky to such bloody adventures, 
 and impel so exalted a personage as the Austrian 
 ambassador to such desperate extremities? One 
 
 163
 
 164 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 thing alone seemed certain: that the farther we 
 proceeded into the labyrinth, the more hazardous 
 appeared our journey and the smaller our hope 
 of a safe return. 
 
 Through it all, however, even when the cir 
 cumstances surrounding her actions almost com 
 pelled suspicion, I stood out for the Countess. 
 No argument, I declared, would, either then or 
 in the future, convince me of any criminality 
 upon her part, and no bribe would re-enlist me 
 against her. I had made up my mind to offer 
 my sword to her service, and I gave formal 
 notice that, upon the morrow evening, I should 
 be found openly under her flag. 
 
 It was some comfort to find that Frances was, 
 upon the whole, inclined to agree with my con 
 victions. She was, of course, first of all a de 
 tective searching, with as little bias as possible, 
 for the truth, but she was also a woman that had 
 been tricked by the ambassador and one that had 
 all of a woman s hatred for the man that had 
 deceived her. Her attitude was now, in short, 
 that she inclined to my view of the case and that, 
 while reserving a final judgment, she proposed 
 to work constantly ahead in the hope of un 
 covering something that should prove at least 
 disconcerting to the Baron. In the end, when I 
 gave feeble expression to the fever of distress
 
 Caught in the Net 165 
 
 in which I writhed at the thought of the dungeon- 
 walls closing in upon the Countess, she had also 
 the good sense to point out that all I could do 
 now was to get myself into as good shape as 
 possible for the hidden difficulties that lay before 
 me and that the best way to begin such a task 
 was at once to get to sleep. 
 
 When we met again at the breakfast table, 
 which we reached at four o clock in the after 
 noon, Frances was even more ready. 
 
 " Czibulka," she began, "is to meet the 
 Countess Stephanie at L Abbaye at ten this 
 evening. Your appointment was for an hour 
 later. Very well, the proper course for you to 
 pursue is to go early to the Place Pigalle, to stop 
 the Countess as she enters before Bolfras can 
 possibly get a word alone with her and then 
 you must warn her of Czibulka s treachery." 
 
 " And you? " I asked. What are you going 
 to do?" 
 
 " I shall stay here, waiting close to the phone. 
 You will have some trouble, I m afraid, in con 
 vincing the Countess of my good intentions, 
 but, just as soon as you have succeeded, call me 
 up and then we must all three get together and 
 see what can be done to help her. In the mean 
 time, in order that you may provide against the 
 unlikely contingency of a battle of wits with our
 
 166 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 friend the Judas, I hold, literally, one last card 
 against him, which, if you don t mind, I shall 
 now instruct you how to play." 
 
 To those concluding instructions I listened 
 with both ears alert, and, when we finally parted, 
 it was with refreshed confidence. I could even 
 walk up to the Louvre with some mind for what 
 I could see on the way and, returning, eat with 
 some show of enjoyment a little supper at the 
 Caf6 de Paris. In fact, I managed to put in a 
 few not unpleasant hours on this second day in 
 the City of Gayety and at last, at a quarter after 
 nine, got into a cab by the Halles aux Vins 
 feeling fairly comfortable and quite ready to 
 begin my expedition in behalf of the Countess. 
 
 But then the troubles of the night began. My 
 driver had seemed to have some difficulty in 
 comprehending my instructions; he had started 
 out at a pace that would have shamed an Ala 
 bama accommodation train, and it shortly began 
 to appear that, if he were heading at all for 
 Montmartre, he was at any rate making his way 
 thither only by the most roundabout course 
 conceivable. Twice he stopped, descended from 
 his box and, poking his thick head and red face 
 in at the window, asked me again where it was 
 that I desired to be driven. Twice more he 
 stopped and exchanged befuddled question and
 
 Caught in the Net 167 
 
 answer with solitary pedestrians along the dark 
 and narrow streets, which we were now so slowly 
 traversing. And, at last, on a steep incline, he 
 came to a full stop. 
 
 We alighted, I think, simultaneously, for I 
 was now almost mad with my anxiety and, to 
 my annoyance, the driver, I at once observed, 
 was mad with drink. 
 
 " Get inside this cab! " I shouted in the best 
 French that my anger would permit me. " Get 
 inside, I tell you, and let me take the reins! 
 I ve hired you and I mean to get to my destina 
 tion in decent time! " 
 
 For answer he swayed uncertainly before me 
 for an instant and then, with the bellow of a 
 great bull, he plunged forward upon me. I 
 caught him on the chin, but he was a mite too 
 quick for me and my blow landed a little too 
 far from the point to be wholly effective. He 
 reeled, but, as if the shock had driven the fumes 
 of brandy from his head, he turned abruptly 
 and I saw his great, wooden sabot flash in the 
 air. 
 
 But I was not twice to be caught by the same 
 trick. Not dexterously, perhaps, but at least 
 with result, I ducked, grabbed the fellow s foot 
 in both hands, swung it to my shoulder and 
 dumped its owner into the gutter just as there was
 
 168 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 a clatter of arms from out of the darkness above 
 us and a party of three agents de la police 
 descended in the name of the Republic and the 
 Law. 
 
 I have been arrested more than once in my 
 time and, unless some miracle should remake 
 what we know as human justice, I hope again 
 to be arrested before death ends all my chances. 
 But I don t especially care ever to be restrained 
 in circumstances quite so disquieting. My 
 drunken driver had wasted no end of precious 
 minutes ; my present approaching captors would 
 be likely to hold me a prisoner in all events un 
 til after ten o clock, and, all the while, from 
 some unknown house in that city, the Countess 
 Stephanie was making her way toward the trap 
 in the Place Pigalle. 
 
 It was no moment for amenities. I leaped 
 nimbly away from the outstretched hand of the 
 headmost gendarme; doubled; tripped the 
 second; caught the third under his Gallic ear, 
 and made off up the street and into the pro 
 tecting darkness. 
 
 For half a minute I could hear nothing but 
 my own foot-falls pounding on the stones. Then 
 there were yells or rather shrieks from my 
 new enemies, and then came the rush of pursuit. 
 Blindly I turned off at the first corner, rounded
 
 Caught in the Net 169 
 
 another, came panting into a more busy 
 thoroughfare and, by good luck, found myself 
 almost dashing into a taximetre that displayed 
 the welcome sign: " Libre." 
 
 " Place Pigalle ! L Abbaye ! Vite / " I managed 
 barely to gasp, and instantly the automobile 
 was moving, at a goodly pace, away from the 
 danger that I feared and toward the peril that I 
 courted. 
 
 But I had lost much valuable time. As we 
 rolled into the Place Pigalle, I looked for the first 
 time at my watch: it was two minutes after 
 ten. 
 
 I paid my cabman and, on the curb, stood 
 hesitant. Should I wait outside of Albert s 
 on the chance that the Countess might be late? 
 If I entered, I should be sure to find Czibulka, 
 because it is certain that a man with his life at 
 stake will take care to be prompt. On the 
 other hand, if the Countess had already arrived, 
 the least delay on my part might prove fatal. 
 I resolved to go in at once and play whatever 
 game seemed best. 
 
 It was still an early hour for L Abbaye. The 
 red-coated band had but just begun its evening 
 concert; half the waiters stood somnolent, 
 oblivious statues about the brilliant green and 
 white room; and scarce a dozen tables were
 
 170 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 taken. But the good goddess had not altogether 
 forsaken me : at the place where I had come upon 
 the Countess the night before, her back to the 
 same low partition over which my view on the 
 preceding evening had been obscured by her 
 large, black hat, she was now just in the act of 
 seating herself beside the waiting Czibulka. 
 
 I was still in time ! She had but by one moment 
 preceded me. The traitor could not yet have 
 learned her address, and, since it was impossible 
 for me to forewarn her, I might yet play Frances s 
 last card. 
 
 With all the smiling unconcern that I could 
 muster, I greeted them both. 
 
 " Mademoiselle la Comtesse," said I bowing, 
 and then, as if just catching sight of her com 
 panion: "Ah, and Monsieur Czibulka also? 
 This is indeed charming! I had no idea that my 
 two friends were acquainted." 
 
 Czibulka was frankly annoyed, as, of course, 
 who would not be in his place ? And the Count 
 ess, I am bound to say, was quite as frankly 
 surprised. 
 
 " I had scarcely expected you so soon, Mr. 
 Burton," she said to me in a tone of restrained 
 annoyance, her eyebrows raised in something 
 not unlike a cold displeasure. 
 
 " And I," growled Czibulka, trying hard to
 
 Caught in the Net 171 
 
 smile and not succeeding except so far as to 
 display his teeth, " I had not expected you at 
 all." 
 
 They had neither of them asked me to join 
 them, but I overlooked the absence of an invita 
 tion and sat down anyhow. 
 
 " All the better," I laughed. " These little 
 fetes are never so pleasant as when impromptu. 
 Permit me to call a waiter." 
 
 I did it, too. Mademoiselle grew more and more 
 haughty and Czibulka more and more nervous, 
 but I played to its end the unsympathetic r61e 
 of the fool that doesn t have the merest notion 
 that he is the third person who is making a 
 crowd. I ordered the supper and the wine, and 
 made them eat and drink; I filled their silences 
 with inane chatter; I was totally blind to their 
 anger and stone deaf to their innuendoes. 
 
 But, in the end, it was the Countess that won. 
 Implicitly confident that Czibulka was her ally 
 and not ready to take me into her confidence, she 
 remained resolved upon getting rid of me in 
 order to have her appointed talk with the traitor, 
 and, at last, when every other means had been 
 exhausted, she began an outrageous flirtation 
 with the fellow, who, noticing that she had found 
 the flaw in my armour and absurdly flattered 
 even by the attention of the woman he was
 
 172 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 about to betray, turned upon me with his ugliest 
 frown. 
 
 " Monsieur," he said, " this farce has pro 
 ceeded far enough. The hour grows late, and 
 mademoiselle has a word or two to say to me in 
 private." 
 
 My fingers closed tight about the stem of my 
 wine-glass and I felt receding from my cheeks 
 all the blood that Stephanie s ruse had sent 
 there. But I was still sane enough to conquer 
 my anger and to realize that my only hope and 
 hers lay in the retention of my calm. 
 
 " A thousand pardons! " I exclaimed, still 
 true though by what an effort ! to my 
 clownish r61e. " I had no idea that I was in 
 truding ! " And I rose to my feet. 
 
 Czibulka s hard face cracked into a grin that 
 I am sure was meant to express genuine good 
 nature. 
 
 " Oh, not an intrusion, Mr. Burton! " he pro 
 tested. " It has been a most merry evening " 
 Very merry," murmured Stephanie politely. 
 
 " But," continued her companion, " I have 
 indeed that little word or so to say, and if 
 monsieur will but do me the honour to be my 
 guest here, with mademoiselle, to-morrow eve 
 ning - 
 
 " With pleasure," I interrupted. " And I
 
 Caught in the Net 173 
 
 now go." I fumbled in my waistcoat pocket. - 
 " My hotel address is written there," I said, and 
 held out to him a card. 
 
 Still grinning with pride at the triumph of 
 what he must have considered his masterful 
 diplomacy, Czibulka graciously held out his left 
 hand and took the bit of cardboard between his 
 thumb and his forefinger. 
 
 I glanced down. 
 
 " Oh! " I cried. " I beg your pardon. How 
 stupid of me ! I must have given you the wrong 
 card." 
 
 But Czibulka, though somewhat tardily, had 
 recognized the trick. His face went ashen and, 
 as I made a movement to recover the card, he 
 too sprang to his feet. As he did so, my fingers 
 closed about his wrist; I gave it a quick twist 
 and, as a low cry broke from my enemy, the bit 
 of pasteboard fluttered from his aching fingers 
 and fell before Stephanie s plate. 
 
 Why," she exclaimed, picking up the card, 
 " it is waxed! " 
 
 I looked at Czibulka. He stood across the 
 table from me, his eyes like a frog s in his pasty 
 face ; his bristling hair more erect than ever and 
 the strange scar flashing from red to purple 
 upon his low brow. 
 
 "Yes, mademoiselle," said I; "the card is
 
 174 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 waxed, and it shows the imprint of this gentle 
 man s left thumb. You may know that, in all 
 the world, there are no two men that have thumbs 
 similarly marked. Do me the honour then," 
 and I crossed to them, still smiling " do me 
 the honour, mademoiselle, pray while I stand 
 between you and your friend here of compar 
 ing that imprint in the waxed card with this one 
 in blood, which I found in the house at Mount- 
 ville beside the dead body of Hans Jaeger." 
 
 With that, I again caught Czibulka s wrist 
 in a tight grip and, never so much as looking 
 toward him, presented to Stephanie the bit of 
 crimsoned newspaper, which we had secured at 
 the scene of the murder and which Frances had, 
 only a few hours before, turned over to me for 
 this purpose. 
 
 It was a chance shot. For all we knew that 
 madman, Wilhelm Jaeger, now, evidently, the 
 much-desired Prince, might also be left-handed 
 and the blood that the Rhorerstown ticker-seller 
 had seen on Czibulka s fingers might have got 
 there after the actual murder, but, though its 
 results were far from what I had expected, it was 
 a true shot nevertheless. 
 
 Stephanie looked first at one impression and 
 then at the other. My eyes devoured her, 
 hungry for the expression of horror that I momen-
 
 Caught in the Net 175 
 
 tarily expected to see painted upon her face. 
 But nothing of the sort appeared. A slight line 
 the mere symbol of puzzled concentration 
 was drawn between her brows and then, looking 
 up at me, she said very quietly : 
 
 " Monsieur, it is the same." 
 
 " Well, then," I cried in triumph, " can t you 
 see? This man is the murderer of Hans Jaeger! " 
 
 And just there my tremendous melodrama fell 
 to bits. 
 
 Stephanie smiled. 
 
 " My dear friend," she said, " I did not require 
 this card to convince me of it. Monsieur Czi- 
 bulka s word was sufficient." 
 
 " His word? " I repeated in utter bewilder 
 ment. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Burton," she nodded. " I have for 
 some weeks known that Monsieur Czibulka killed 
 that villain."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT JAEGER 
 " Woe to thee . . . when thy king is a child." 
 
 IF it had not been for Czibulka himself, I think 
 that I should have quit right there. But when 
 I shot a glance at him and saw that ugly face of 
 his again wreathed in an unholy grin, I made up 
 my mind in that moment to try still one more 
 trump. 
 
 " Sir," I said, my voice steady again, " a 
 moment ago you remarked that the hour grew 
 late, and I acquiesced with you. I still agree. 
 But it is now I who have a word to say to mademoi 
 selle in private." 
 
 He gave a sudden start that shook him free of 
 my hold. 
 
 " You amuse me, Mr. Burton," he growled, 
 though his face was not precisely what one might 
 call the picture of pleasure. 
 
 " I thank you for the praise," I replied some 
 what icily. " I should not have guessed it had you 
 not told it to me yourself. But that is not at 
 
 176
 
 The Truth about Jaeger 177 
 
 all to the point. I wish, Monsieur Czibulka, to 
 speak to mademoiselle alone." 
 
 What? " he stammered excitedly. " When 
 you have heard what she just said? " 
 
 I looked again at Stephanie. I strained all my 
 heart to my eyes and pleaded silently. 
 
 " Mademoiselle? " I asked. 
 
 She studied me with that calm, cool glance of 
 hers, which I had felt the night before. Both 
 my fate and hers were hanging, for her second of 
 hesitation, in the balance, and then : 
 
 " I can see no harm," she murmured slowly, 
 her dark eyes clouding to bewilderment, " I can 
 see no harm for a few minutes " 
 
 I turned to Czibulka. 
 
 " You hear mademoiselle? " I demanded. 
 
 " And, if I should not choose to obey," he 
 blustered. 
 
 " If you should not choose to obey, Monsieur 
 Czibulka, I should at once hand you over to the 
 police." 
 
 Whether it was from a fear of my effecting that 
 threat, or a sense that he must meet her confidence 
 in him with a seemingly corresponding confidence, 
 or whether, again, it was the man s sublime faith 
 in the position in which she had just placed 
 him, I cannot, for my own part, determine, 
 but, for whatever reason, he finally shrugged
 
 178 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 his shoulders and even achieved another vacuous 
 grin. 
 
 Very well, monsieur," he agreed. " I shall 
 do better for you than a few minutes. I shall 
 go and not return for half an hour." 
 
 He frowned with unconcealed hostility at me, 
 smiled at Stephanie, bowed over her extended 
 hand and made for the door. 
 
 I watched his little figure with its crown of 
 bristling black until I had made sure that he was 
 really gone. Then I took the place that he had 
 left vacant beside Stephanie. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," said I, " you must listen to 
 me, and, if you would save your life, or, at all 
 events, your cause whatever that cause may 
 be you must believe me. That man considers 
 he is safe in leaving you with me, because he 
 believes you think that he killed this man Jaeger 
 in your service." 
 
 Stephanie smiled strangely. 
 
 " He did," she said. 
 
 " You do not at all doubt this? " I asked. 
 
 " He could have had no other reason." 
 
 " Be that as it may, mademoiselle, but let me 
 tell you something that may make you doubt his 
 loyalty to your cause. My friend, the detective, 
 last night overheard a confession which this 
 Czibulka made to the Baron de Hetzendorf, and
 
 The Truth about Jaeger 179 
 
 as a result of that enforced confession, the am 
 bassador has promised to spare Bolfras Czibulka s 
 life only on condition that he this evening get 
 your address from you and deliver you and your 
 friends into the ambassador s hands." 
 
 Her marble face paled whiter, if possible, and 
 then flushed to crimson. 
 
 " Monsieur," she demanded, her head very high 
 and her eyes aflame, " how do you dare to ask 
 me to believe so vile a story? " 
 
 " Mademoiselle," I answered, " how else did I 
 know that you were to be here at ten o clock to 
 meet the Austrian ? 
 
 She looked at me searchingly for a long moment, 
 and then, suddenly, her eyes fell. She half rose. 
 
 Gently, I forced her back to her chair. 
 
 " Sit down," I ordered. 
 
 " Why do you try to detain me? " she de 
 manded. " If what you tell me is true, there is 
 not a moment to be lost here: I must go from 
 this place immediately." 
 
 You cannot leave here," I made answer. 
 The ambassador has spies near at hand to watch 
 Czibulka and force him to allegiance, and this 
 place is undoubtedly surrounded." 
 
 " Ah! " she tossed her head like a restrained 
 wild animal. Her eyes were blazing again 
 blazing with the ancient hate that the eyes of
 
 180 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 her ancestors must have known. " In that case, 
 there remains but one thing for us to do." 
 
 She took my hand between her hot palms. 
 
 " Monsieur," she continued, " you say that 
 you are my friend; you have told me that you 
 would serve me. Come, then: will you kill this 
 viper for me? " 
 
 I don t think that I was ever nearer promising to 
 do murder; I met her gaze with all the heart of me 
 afire, but I knew that murder is always the last 
 resort, and then, frequently, but the resort of a 
 coward, and I was not yet prepared to admit that 
 all my fund of ingenuity had been exhausted. 
 
 " Mademoiselle/ I swore, returning the pressure 
 of her hands, " I will serve you even to that, if it 
 becomes best. But I should serve you ill indeed if 
 I ruined both of us while there is still a chance of 
 outwitting our enemies. At least so long as we 
 remain in this cafe, we shall be safe, and Czibulka, 
 ignorant of my knowledge of his treachery, will 
 surely give us the half hour that he promised. We 
 may, then, take a reasonable amount of time in 
 forming our plans. But before I can advise you, 
 I must know the truth of this project upon which 
 you are engaged: you must tell me the whole 
 truth." 
 
 Slowly she released her hands from mine and, 
 placing them on my shoulders, drew my face close
 
 The Truth about Jaeger 181 
 
 to hers. I don t know what the other customers of 
 Monsieur Albert were thinking the tables were 
 almost filled with them by this time but they 
 were not unused to such actions, prompted by 
 whatever motive, and, at any rate, I didn t care. 
 It was, and is, enough for me that she did it. 
 
 "My friend," she whispered slowly "You 
 are indeed my friend? " 
 
 My heart gave a great bound at her question. 
 
 " Now and for always I am your friend," I 
 vowed. 
 
 She unloosed me gently and, her eyes still fixed, 
 gave her decision : 
 
 " I shall tell you all." 
 
 Then," said I, with difficulty getting down to 
 practicalities, " who is Wilhelm Jaeger, anyhow? " 
 
 She replied quietly: 
 
 " He is the only legitimate son of Franz- Josef ; 
 he is the heir to the throne of all Austria; he is 
 Rudolf, the Prince Imperial."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SUPPRESSED HISTORY 
 
 " For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honey 
 comb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: 
 
 "But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two- 
 edged sword. 
 
 "Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on 
 hell." 
 
 THE room seemed suddenly aglow with more 
 brilliant lights. I had been thinking only of my 
 own part in this farce or tragedy that was 
 being enacted in one corner of L Abbaye s green 
 and white room, but somehcfw at the sound of that 
 one word, I looked up to see the gay colours 
 mostly reds it seemed that now nearly crowded 
 the salon. 
 
 " Rudolf! " I echoed. 
 
 " Hush! " she cautioned. " Do not speak so 
 loud. You do not know who may overhear you in 
 such a place as this." 
 
 " But," I protested, " surely it was Rudolf who 
 killed his sweetheart and blew out his own brains 
 at Mayerling in 1889." 
 
 Stephanie shook her burnished head. 
 
 182
 
 Suppressed History 183 
 
 " No one at court," she began, " ever believed 
 the published accounts of the tragedy at Mayer- 
 ling. The Prince s love-affair was common knowl 
 edge, and his marriage to the proud, shallow, bad- 
 tempered daughter of King Leopold had nearly 
 wrecked his reason, but, although these facts 
 would account for much of the story, they could 
 hardly account for the discrepancies in the official 
 narrative. 
 
 " Much of the truth you must already know, 
 Mr. Burton. How the Princess sent word to her 
 father that she intended to leave her royal husband ; 
 how Leopold telegraphed to her, in reply, ordering 
 her to remain; how Rudolf, mad in his love for 
 Marie Vetsera, wrote to the Holy Father, asking an 
 annulment of his marriage in order that he might 
 give up his claim to the throne, and retire, with his 
 new wife, into private life, and how Leo XIII sent 
 the Prince s letter to Franz-Josef of these things, 
 at least, the entire world has long since been aware. 
 Here, throughout Europe, whatever you may have 
 heard in the United States, we know, too, that, the 
 night after this letter reached the Emperor, he 
 summoned to him Rudolf, the Archduke Charles- 
 Louis and the Prince- Archbishop of Vienna. We 
 know that a scene of storm followed, but that the 
 Prince Imperial refused flatly to retreat from his 
 position ; that, when the father and the son were
 
 184 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 left together alone, the dispute must have waxed 
 still warmer, because Rudi came out of the room 
 as white as a ghost and the Emperor s valet, enter 
 ing later, found his master in a faint. Anyone that 
 was then at the court will tell you that, the next 
 morning, Franz- Josef, as soon as he awakened, sent 
 for his son only to learn that the Prince had left 
 still earlier for Mayerling, where his friends, Count 
 Hoyos and Prince Philip of Coburg, were shooting, 
 and even the Viennese newspapers printed the fact 
 that, on that very evening, there came a brief note 
 from Rudolf saying that he was slightly indisposed 
 and that he would not return for the dinner in 
 honour of the Archduchess Marie-Valerie and her 
 fianc6, the Archduke Francis-Salvator." 
 
 Stephanie paused. 
 
 " Yes," I said; " most of those facts we heard, 
 even in America." 
 
 " And how Marie Vetserawent to Mayerling 
 did your American papers print that too? " 
 
 I began to remember. 
 
 " I think," said I, " that they said that she had 
 received, that day, a note that she immediately 
 destroyed, at once leaving her home and going 
 afoot to the florist s shop, which she was in the 
 habit of patronizing." 
 
 " Precisely so, my friend. And there, at the 
 florist shop, she purchased an unusually large
 
 Suppressed History 185 
 
 bunch of violets. These served as a badge of iden 
 tification to a cab-driver that was waiting at that 
 time for a woman so decorated Bratfisch, the 
 Crown Prince s favourite cocker, into whose car 
 riage she was seen by passersby to enter, driving 
 rapidly away." 
 
 " I remember all that, mademoiselle. I recall, 
 too, that Rudolf had said that he suffered from a 
 cold and would, therefore, remain indoors while the 
 Prince of Coburg and the Count Hoyos went shoot 
 ing; that, at Mayerling, Rudolf himself, it was 
 currently reported, met Bratfisch s carriage, and 
 conducted its occupant to a salon in his private 
 suite of apartments in the palace ; that his friends, 
 returning home, found a note from him, saying 
 that he would not wait up for them ; that he dined 
 alone and went to bed early. - - The next morning, 
 Rudolf was found shot through the head and Marie 
 Vetsera was dead from poison." 
 
 " That, my friend, was the general belief. At 
 first the official announcements had it that the 
 Prince had died from an aneurism of the heart. 
 But, frankly, did you never stop to think that no 
 persons, save the court doctors and Rudolf s 
 friends, Coburg and Hoyos, ever actually saw the 
 body; that the dead Prince Imperial was taken 
 secretly from Mayerling, and that only when 
 people began to gossip was the suicide-story
 
 186 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 brought forward at the suggestion of the Duchess 
 Ludovica of Bavaria, mother of the Empress 
 Elizabeth?" 
 
 " I never did, but, even so - 
 
 " Attend a moment. As for the body of Marie 
 Vetsera, no one at all saw that. In the final version 
 of the narrative, after the suicide-story had been 
 given out, it was said that this body was by night 
 smuggled out a back door at Mayerling, twenty- 
 four hours after the Prince s had been removed for 
 burial. They said also that it had been taken into 
 the forest, put on a wagon, concealed for a day or 
 more in the chapel of Heiligenkreutz and then car 
 ried to some remote railway station, whence it was 
 hurried to Trieste and so to Venice, where, later, it 
 was reported that the girl had died." 
 
 " If I remember correctly, we heard nearly all of 
 these details at home," I said. 
 
 " Yes," she made answer, " it was quite possible. 
 But we some of us in Vienna did not believe 
 them. Bit by bit we found first one flaw and then 
 another until we became convinced that the Prince 
 was still alive. Me I am an Hungarian. My 
 father died for the liberty of my native land, and I, 
 the only child of his house, had given my life to 
 such service as a woman might render in the Cause. 
 I was willing I was anxious to give my very 
 heart s blood for it. Now, at last, after long
 
 Suppressed History 187 
 
 searching, I was sure that I had come upon some 
 thing that might be turned to the purpose of free 
 dom. I need not go into all the details. Russia, I 
 was aware, had her own ends to gain and I and my 
 friends made a bargain with her by which we ob 
 tained for our aid the wonderful secret service of 
 that most wonderful empire. It was in this man 
 ner that we verified our suspicions concerning Ru 
 dolf s death and, in the end, learned the truth." 
 " And that was ? " I prompted. 
 The truth was that Prince Rudolf had indeed 
 declared to his father and to his other advisers that 
 he had determined to marry the woman he loved ; 
 he had announced that he was a free man and 
 would give up all claim to the throne and live his 
 own life as he chose to live it. With this intention 
 firm in his mind, he went to Mayerling and sent for 
 Marie in the manner in which all the world now 
 knows. --You know well, by reputation at least, 
 the Austrian pride greater far than their pater 
 nal love and especially the pride of the Haps- 
 burgs. Eh bien. The Archdukes, being immedi 
 ately informed of Rudolf s attitude, and having 
 been told by the Emperor himself of the impossi 
 bility of swerving the Prince from his purpose, 
 resolved oh, without, I grant you, the knowl 
 edge of Franz-Josef ! to nip the scandal in the 
 bud by the ancient and effective method of assas-
 
 188 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 sination. They determined to kill the heir to the 
 throne and give it out publicly that he had died 
 of heart disease. They bribed the Prince s body- 
 servant, Loschek, to do the killing. This Loschek 
 entered the room in which were Rudi and Marie 
 and endeavoured to earn his reward, but the 
 Prince, who was powerfully strong, was too quick 
 for his would-be murderer, and overcame him, 
 driving into the servant s heart the knife that had 
 sought his own. At once that night Rudolf 
 and his sweetheart fled from Mayerling and com 
 pletely disappeared." 
 
 " But the newspapers," I insisted. :< How were 
 they silenced? " 
 
 Stephanie shrugged her supple shoulders. 
 
 You must know that Austria is not America," 
 she sufficiently explained. " And," she added, 
 " you must remember that the body was not 
 exposed to general view. The conspirators, in 
 order to protect themselves and seeing that they 
 might use as well one dead man as another, worked 
 upon Franz-Josef s fear of scandal and ended in 
 bringing the Emperor around to their way of 
 thinking. They simply substituted the body of 
 Loschek for that of Rudolf and gave out that the 
 Prince Imperial had died of heart disease, just 
 as they had originally planned to do. It was only 
 when their secrecy about the funeral nearly started
 
 Suppressed History 189 
 
 riots in Vienna that the suicide story was adopted, 
 and then, as you may recall, it was further stated 
 that Loschek had been pensioned and sent 
 abroad." 
 
 " And the Prince," I asked, " came to the 
 United States?" 
 
 Stephanie nodded assent. 
 
 " In the meantime," she pursued, " Rudolf 
 had, of course, disappeared. He was, after much 
 time and trouble, traced, by Austrian agents, 
 to a small town in the state of Iowa, where, for 
 some time, he was quietly supported by a pension. 
 Then, suddenly, it was learned by the government 
 that Marie had died, that his loss had completely 
 unseated Rudi s reason and that he had been 
 altogether lost track of. It was at this time that 
 my allies and I began our own investigations." 
 
 "You found him?" 
 
 " Not at once. Our plan was to get possession 
 of his person, and then, either use that possession 
 as a threat against the Austrian government in 
 order to gain concessions for Hungary, or else, 
 to turn Rudolf over to Russia, and, upon the 
 death of the Emperor, Franz-Josef, to produce 
 him and bring him to the throne, mad as he was, 
 controlled, of course, by Russian advisers, who 
 would at once set my country free. This was good, 
 but, unfortunately, the Austrian agents, from
 
 190 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 Washington, were ahead of us in the field. They 
 chose a clever man for their task, and, when he had 
 found the Prince again, they ordered him to 
 maintain the ascendency he had gained over that 
 enfeebled intellect. These orders the Austrian 
 agent executed to the letter. He took Rudolf 
 to that little farm in Mountville, where the two 
 of them lived as brothers under the assumed name 
 of Jaeger Wilhelm and Hans Jaeger." 
 
 " I begin to see," I said smiling grimly, " in 
 what deep waters I have been trying to swim." 
 
 " Deep indeed," admitted Stephanie, with a 
 rueful curve upon her scarlet lips, " I understand, 
 for I have been swimming in them, too. When 
 the Russian spies informed us of this new turn of 
 events, I was sent to America, but, meanwhile, 
 it seems, the Prince had begun to show glimmers 
 of returning reason and the archdukes, learning of 
 our activities I now can guess from what 
 quarter became alarmed. Unknown to the 
 Emperor, they once again determined to attempt 
 to assassinate the Prince. Czibulka was to go 
 to Lancaster and oversee the affair. As Rudolf s 
 returning reason had given him some suspicions 
 of the truth, any ransacking of the premises such 
 as was necessary for, in a dispatch-box the 
 Prince kept many papers that would prove his 
 identity would have to be done during his
 
 Suppressed History 191 
 
 absence or after his death, and, as the murderer 
 must escape in order that the secret be preserved, 
 it was decided that Czibulka should begin his 
 search while the spy was accompanying the Prince 
 to the village post-office." 
 
 With every word the mystery was becoming 
 clearer. 
 
 " I see," I said, and rapidly explained how I 
 came to know why the plan had been delayed 
 twenty-four hours, and why Stephanie had made 
 her appeal to Frances Baird. 
 
 " On the whole, this is right enough," she 
 admitted. " I was advised to seek Miss Baird 
 for the recovery of the Prince s papers, because, 
 it was told me, in a local murder-case, she would 
 have more freedom of action than our Russian 
 spies. This Czibulka seems to have made a 
 comparatively true confession to the ambassador, 
 but of course such a dog as he is could not tell 
 the whole truth to anyone, and he has omitted one 
 important detail. He himself has told me 
 and the Prince has confirmed it that, when he 
 heard the struggle below-stairs in the farmhouse, 
 he ran down, discovered the men locked in a 
 death-grasp, picked up a knife and then, deciding 
 quickly that Rudolf was the more valuable piece 
 of property, killed the hired assassin. Oh," 
 she went on, " he of course explained to me that
 
 192 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 he meant all along to serve us, but I know now 
 what his mental process must have been and why, 
 after he had killed one man whom he had never 
 even seen before, he saved another, not for love 
 of that man or love of our Cause, but merely for 
 the money that he might gain. As soon as he had 
 accomplished his deed, he telegraphed to me and, 
 finally, gave the Prince into my keeping to be 
 brought to Paris. It was my first sight of His 
 Highness, and I almost wish it had been my last. 
 But well, at all events, that ends my story." 
 
 She leaned back in her seat, over her marble 
 face the veil of a great weariness. 
 
 " That ends my story," she repeated, " and my 
 work as well, I believe. The book is now closed 
 for ever, my friend. Hungary, but a moment 
 ago so near to freedom, must remain in servitude, 
 and Prince Rudolf must be delivered over to 
 death." 
 
 But I could not share her mood. My own blood 
 was fired with the final knowledge of the big 
 stakes for which we were playing. 
 
 " I should not bet on that, mademoiselle," I 
 said. " I have still a few more trumps left in my 
 hand, thank you. Come with me."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE LOG OF A DEEP-SEAGOING HANSOM 
 
 " Behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee for 
 help to be delivered from the King of Assyria: and how 
 shall we escape? " 
 
 FOR a quick instant her black eyes flashed 
 with hope, but as soon again clouded to doubt. 
 
 " Go? " she repeated. " My friend, with all my 
 heart. But where and " - her scarlet lips parted 
 in a little spiritless smile " in Heaven s name, 
 how?" 
 
 " Only one question at a time, mademoiselle," 
 I answered. " As to our destination, that is simple 
 enough: we must go, as fast as carriage or taxi 
 will drive us, to your address and warn your 
 allies." 
 
 " But, surely this place is now being watched 
 both front and back." 
 
 " Of course it is," I replied. 
 
 " And, if we leave it, we are sure to be fol 
 lowed." 
 
 " I think not, mademoiselle. You have asked 
 me also as to the means of our escape: didn t 
 
 193
 
 194 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 I, last night, notice another restaurant almost 
 next door to this one? " 
 
 She nodded: " The Rat Mort." 
 
 " Good. And don t you happen to know the 
 proprietor of this place L Abbaye? " 
 
 " I know the proprietors of both places. My 
 aunt married a Frenchman and both of these 
 men were once on my uncle s estate in Nor 
 mandy." 
 
 You can trust them? " 
 
 " I can trust them absolutely." 
 
 Blond Albert, our host of L Abbaye, was, just 
 as she said this, passing between the narrow aisles 
 in our direction. I beckoned to him. 
 
 " Monsieur, it is necessary," I rapidly ex 
 plained, " that mademoiselle leave here speedily 
 and altogether unobserved. Neither of your exits 
 will serve her purpose. I wish to conduct her 
 across the roofs to the Rat Mort. Can you not 
 arrange this? " 
 
 Albert s pleasant, thin face wrinkled per 
 plexedly, and he looked at Stephanie for a further 
 explanation. 
 
 "Is mademoiselle the Comtesse sure ," he 
 began. 
 
 " Quite sure," she insisted. 
 
 Her word and tone were enough to convince 
 the proprietor. The smile leaped back to his lips.
 
 The Log of a Deep-seagoing Hansom 195 
 
 " At once, monsieur, mademoiselle," he beamed, 
 " if you will but be so good as to follow me." 
 
 We lost not a moment. As we hurried by the 
 salle d attente, a bowing waiter handed us our 
 wraps, and, after a sharp turn to the right and 
 a quick passage up a narrow stairway, the Nor 
 man, from the darkness, flung wide a hidden 
 trap-door. The cool air of the night caressed our 
 faces. Overhead shone the stars in myriads and 
 underfoot clanked the tiles. We were on the 
 roof. 
 
 Nor did Albert s good offices fail us there. It 
 must have been a journey that the exigencies of 
 his business had previously demanded of him, for 
 he guided us rapidly about the many chimney 
 pots and dexterously led us across to the next 
 house, Stephanie s right hand in his and her left 
 thrilling in my own, until, by what, but for his 
 warnings, would have been a perilous route, he 
 brought us again to a door, which swung slowly 
 open to a light tap from his knuckles. 
 
 " Pierre," he whispered to the cautious head 
 that was thrust out to inspect us, "it is I - 
 Albert. It is all right. These are my friends and 
 the friends of your master s. It is as a favour to 
 me that I ask you to permit them to descend." 
 
 Pierre gave a grunt that I took to mean assent. 
 At any rate, I stepped inside, leading Stephanie
 
 196 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 carefully after me, and then, before we could 
 even turn to thank Albert, the door had closed 
 upon him and our new guide showed us down other 
 flights of stairs and brought us to the shadowy 
 hallway on the ground floor of the " Rat Mort," 
 where, without a word, he turned away as rapidly 
 as had Albert upon the roof, and -left us to our 
 own devices. 
 
 I faced my companion. A single dim and 
 flickering gas-jet shone upon the tall figure of the 
 Countess Stephanie and played tricks with the red 
 hair beneath the big black hat, and seemed, I 
 almost thought breathlessly, to make her sway 
 a little toward me as I put out the hand that she 
 took in both of hers. 
 
 " Now," I said confidently, " we are about to 
 make our attempt at freedom." 
 
 " I am ready," she answered. 
 
 " But," I insisted, hesitating a little, " you 
 must not give yourself into my care unless you 
 are sure of me. Thirty-six hours ago you thought 
 me your enemy; even earlier this evening, less 
 than an hour ago, you doubted me." 
 
 I felt the slightest pressure of her hand. 
 
 " But now," she whispered, " I know you are 
 my friend." 
 
 " I am about to leave you here for a moment," 
 I explained. " I am about to step into the street.
 
 The Log of a Deep-seagoing Hansom 197 
 
 For all you know, I may be going to play the 
 traitor and sell your secret. I may be tempted, 
 you know, just as Czibulka was." 
 
 She slipped one hand from mine and raised it 
 to my lips. Her face had flushed to crimson, but 
 she spoke calmly. 
 
 " You shall not talk so," she said. " I trust 
 you, my friend entirely. Do you believe me 
 now? " 
 
 And then, with a sudden movement, the first 
 hand passed to my cheek, the other followed, and, 
 lifting her head, she kissed me lightly on the 
 mouth. 
 
 "Stephanie!" I cried and flung wide my 
 arms to catch her. 
 
 But she leaped back, laughing. 
 
 " Monsieur Quixote," she replied, " when 
 seconds were golden, it seemed the only way to 
 convince you." 
 
 My heart sank lower than it had risen. 
 
 " Then," I babbled, " you didn t mean it? " 
 
 " Oh, you silly, silly boy! Don t you under 
 stand that we must hurry? Here, take this little 
 talisman and believe that I meant that I trust 
 you!" 
 
 From one of those mysterious recesses where 
 women carry the most surprising of accoutre 
 ments, she took a pair of small shining scissors
 
 198 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 and, with apparent abandon, clipped free a lock 
 of her glorious hair. 
 
 " Now," she said, still laughing as she pressed 
 it into my palm, " go go go! " 
 
 I caught and kissed her hand, but she pushed 
 me forward to the door and I stepped into the 
 street. It was my purpose to go leisurely, as if 
 alone, and, with heart athrob, I think I managed 
 it pretty well. 
 
 The hour was early for Montmartre and, 
 to my delight, there were only four cabs in evi 
 dence. To the driver of one of these the one 
 just before the door of the Rat Mort I care 
 lessly beckoned. The cocker sprang nimbly 
 forward and I pressed a twenty-franc piece into 
 his hand. 
 
 " Obey orders," I whispered rapidly. " Go 
 where you like until told a definite address 
 but go far and fast! " 
 
 The fellow grinned comprehendingly, touched 
 his gleaming white celluloid hat, leaped into the 
 box, and, as I flung open the door of the cab, 
 seized the reins. 
 
 Then I spun about upon my heel and, in the 
 dark shadow of the doorway, laid hold upon 
 Stephanie. 
 
 "Come!" I cried. 
 
 I almost lifted her in my two arms, literally
 
 The Log of a Deep-seagoing Hansom 199 
 
 tossed her into the cab, banged shut its door, 
 sprang to the curb and smacked the horse with a 
 stinging palm. 
 
 " Allez ! " I yelled and, its driver lashing out 
 with his whip, the crazy vehicle jumped into the 
 darkness. 
 
 Then things began to happen like incidents in 
 a cinematograph entertainment. From nowhere 
 and everywhere, the surrounding shadows belched 
 up and spewed forth running men. The street 
 rang with banging feet and shouted curses, and 
 one figure, which I took for Czibulka s, dashed 
 into the handiest of the three remaining cabs. 
 
 But I was too quick to let him accomplish his 
 purpose. In fact, I had counted on just this move 
 by him, and I had my knife in readiness. It was 
 merely a question of one turn of my hand to slash 
 the near trace and put that cab out of business, 
 and then, with a swift blow between the eyes, it 
 was only a matter of tossing aside another spy 
 to get the second cab for myself, to shout to the 
 driver to follow closely that in which Stephanie 
 had just set forth and so to get clean away. 
 
 I fell back, panting heavily, upon the tossing 
 cushions of the cab as we plunged madly, with 
 frightful clamour and terrifying lurchings, down 
 the precipitous street in pursuit of the Countess. 
 The blood was beating in my ears, my heart was
 
 200 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 knocking against my ribs. But rest I knew to be 
 entirely out of all question, for I had left one good 
 vehicle behind me and it was certain that it would, 
 at any moment now, be close upon our traces. 
 Nor had I long to wait for the sound of it. We 
 had gone scarcely two blocks when, above the 
 racket of my own cab, I heard the thundering 
 clatter of that other. 
 
 And Stephanie s coach was in full view just 
 ahead ! 
 
 I sat up, my arms stretched wide to save me 
 from beating out my brains against the side of the 
 taximetre, and listened with ears strained. There 
 could be no doubt about it: my enemies were 
 gaining on us ; they had secured a better horse 
 the pursuit was gaining steadily. 
 
 What to do ? It was obvious that I was not the 
 prey they were after. But if they stuck tight 
 behind me, and if I continued to follow Stephanie, 
 I should actually be directing them to her hiding- 
 place. If I turned aside, they would be too keen 
 to strike away from the main trail to nose after 
 any false scent, but, so close were we both to 
 the real quarry, that, if I dashed around the corner 
 at some side street, I should merely be leaving my 
 Countess unguarded. And yet, there was not 
 an instant to be lost in debate. 
 
 At the joyful risk of my neck, I flung wide the
 
 The Log of a Deep-seagoing Hansom 201 
 
 door and yelled until the driver, without any 
 appreciable decrease in our speed, gave husky 
 answer. 
 
 " Turn quickly, straight across the street," I 
 commanded him loudly " and stop! " 
 
 With such a jerk that it tossed me out of the 
 cab and into the gutter, he obeyed me. We were 
 just midway down the steepest hill that I had as 
 yet encountered in all Paris; my enemy, at a 
 break-neck gait, was tumbling not twenty feet 
 behind us, and the thoroughfare was so narrow 
 that we completely blocked the way. 
 
 Just as I got to my feet and staggered under my 
 own cab s lamp, the rival driver pulled up his 
 gasping beast until I thought and hoped ! - 
 that the horse with its hurrying carriage con 
 taining my enemy would fall against the blockade 
 and be crushed out of existence. 
 
 I turned to my man. 
 
 " I have here a hundred -franc note," I almost 
 shouted. "It is yours if you follow my orders 
 and keep quiet." 
 
 Then I faced the pursuing cab. My plan was, 
 thus far, working perfectly: with a little more 
 courage, I should be able to hold up the enemy 
 until Stephanie had fled beyond the possibility 
 of being captured by him. 
 
 " You there! " I shouted.
 
 202 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 But I got no answer. The driver sat stolidly 
 upon his box and no face showed itself at the 
 window beneath him. 
 
 " Come out of that cab! " I continued. 
 
 Still there was no reply. 
 
 I took out my watch, placed it, open, in my 
 left hand, glanced at it by the carriage-lamp, and, 
 with my right hand, levelled with a steadiness that 
 almost surprised me at that moment, my revolver 
 at the stolid driver. 
 
 " Very well," I said distinctly. " One of you 
 will do quite as well as the other. I shall hold 
 you here for precisely one minute. At the end 
 of that time, you may go ahead, but, if you 
 dare to move before I shall give you permission, 
 I promise you that I shall first shoot your horse 
 and then blow out your brains."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE PRINCE 
 
 " My lips quivered at the voice: . . . and I trembled in 
 myself." 
 
 You would expect, wouldn t you, something 
 melodramatic by way of reply to a command of 
 that sort? Your civilized literary sense would 
 demand it. And when you didn t get it, you would 
 be apt to alight upon gross earth with what the 
 young reporter describes as " a dull thud." 
 
 That is precisely what I did. I looked for oaths 
 and protestations from an ever-stolid, ever-silent 
 driver; I was ready for an attack from his thus 
 far invisible passenger. And I received not a 
 sound from either. 
 
 It was a strange duel of silence that followed, 
 and far more disconcerting than anything upon 
 which I had counted, but I held my ground 
 grimly and stood prepared for any show of a 
 demonstration, with one eye on the enemy and 
 the other on the watch. Then, when the allotted 
 time had expired, I gave them just a few seconds 
 more of enforced rest for good measure and, 
 
 203
 
 204 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 calmly climbing once more into my cab, bade the 
 driver go ahead. 
 
 Where now, monsieur? " he demanded. 
 
 I looked up the street there was not a sign 
 of reinforcements for the pursuer; I looked 
 down and Stephanie s cab had vanished into 
 the night. 
 
 " Anywhere," I answered, and closed the door. 
 
 At that we began the procession. We went 
 straight along the streets before us and the silent 
 fiacre followed us. We turned to the right, and 
 it also turned. We took a chance to the left, and 
 it kept close behind. 
 
 The thing began to get on my nerves. I 
 determined to see to whom I was indebted for 
 these faithful attentions and, again at the risk of 
 life or limb, I directed my driver to whip up for 
 a bit and then to stop quickly on the near side 
 of the next strong street-light. He did it he 
 did it so well that the dumb pursuer could not 
 draw up before he had passed us. And I, leaning 
 far out from my window, caught my desired 
 glimpse of my enemy s face. 
 
 It was Bolfras Czibulka 
 
 I got, of course, only that flying glance, but that 
 was quite sufficient to show me that I had to do 
 with a desperate man. Czibulka must have lost 
 his hat in that race for a cab at the entrance to
 
 The Voice of the Prince 205 
 
 the Rat Mort: his bristling black hair seemed 
 quivering in its uprightness; his bullet-head was 
 thrust far forward by his thick neck; his heavy 
 face was a vivid white patch against the window, 
 and his little mouse-eyes were almost leaping from 
 their sockets. Czibulka, plainly, was making 
 his last desperate play for life. 
 
 Once ahead of me, the man seemed to realize 
 that I had succeeded in losing the scent for him. 
 I suppose he then and there resolved to drop me 
 altogether and make a wild dash forward in some 
 sort of crazy pursuit for the vanished needle in 
 the enormous Parisian haystack. At all events, 
 he gave a shouting order to his driver, and the 
 cab shot forward in front of us. 
 
 This reversed our positions. It was I who was 
 now the pursuer, and I didn t fancy my new r61e. 
 The sight of the fellow had, in fact, re-awakened 
 all the hatred of him which I had felt in L Abbaye, 
 especially during his open delight at the Countess s 
 supposedly strategic flirtation with him, and I 
 made another sudden resolve. 
 
 My driver was both a thrifty soul and an 
 adventurer. He agreed for a price to carry 
 out my suggestion. He lashed his horse into a 
 quick fury and, as we spun by Monsieur Czi- 
 bulka s equipage, he obeyed my orders by neatly 
 ripping off its near wheel and spilling its raging
 
 206 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 occupant upon the street. It was all perfectly 
 done save for one small drawback : our own 
 horse went down and I found myself ramming my 
 head into the front cushions. 
 
 I picked myself up and surveyed the damage. 
 My beast, between the broken shafts, was lying 
 ahead of us with that terrifying quiescence that 
 the experienced horse offers to every fall. The 
 one driver mine was bending over him ; the 
 other my enemy s was running forward - 
 cursing loudly enough this time to visit ven 
 geance on the rival that had caused the wreckage. 
 Close behind, Czibulka, his clothes torn, his ashen 
 face a little bloody, and a revolver glinting in his 
 clenched hand, was advancing, presumably upon 
 me. 
 
 I didn t fancy being caged in a smashed cab, 
 so I jumped out instead and, as there is no use 
 in waiting for trouble to lay hold on one, I rushed 
 toward Czibulka quite as swiftly as he was rushing 
 my way. Then I stepped politely aside as he was 
 about to reach me and tripped him as he passed. 
 
 He went down hard, and I dropped on him like 
 a full-back on the pig-skin, which, indeed, he did, 
 in some measure, resemble. I rammed my knee 
 into his spine, grabbed his throat with my right 
 hand and was just about to wrench away his 
 revolver with the other, when I heard in the dis-
 
 The Voice of the Prince 207 
 
 tance a now familiar sound, and decided to hold 
 the fellow s wrist in such a manner that he would 
 not be able to let go that gun even if he wanted 
 to. 
 
 For the sound was that of running feet and 
 clattering swords. I had again before me the 
 prospect of an interview with the police of Paris. 
 
 They were there, shouting unintelligibly, in an 
 instant, three of them and, in another in 
 stant, were tugging hard at my shoulders to release 
 the spy. 
 
 "One moment, messieurs!" I cried. "One 
 moment, if you please! I shall get up from here 
 immediately, but I ask you first to notice that this 
 man is armed." 
 
 Then I did get up, and they jerked Czibulka 
 after me. I looked them over quickly and thanked 
 my stars to find that none, evidently, had figured 
 in my previous experience with the French con 
 stabulary. 
 
 " What is the meaning of all this? " demanded 
 their leader, a fiery little sergeant with an imperial 
 and a lot of chevrons. 
 
 Czibulka, whom he addressed, was hurting his 
 cause by struggling to get away from the two 
 men that held him by the shoulders, and to pitch 
 into me again. 
 
 Knowing well the value of the first presentation
 
 208 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 of a case, I gladly seized the opportunity thus 
 offered. 
 
 " It means," I lied glibly, " that this fellow ran 
 down my cab, and that, when I protested, he tried 
 to murder me." 
 
 " You swine! " shouted Czibulka, shaking his 
 captors until they danced about his twisting arms 
 like twin tails to a kite. " You swine, you Spanish 
 cow, you duck of a liar ! Messieurs, I tell you that 
 it is / who am the victim of this outrage! " 
 
 " You saw his revolver, messieurs," I calmly 
 reminded the puzzled-looking sergeant. 
 
 " But you dare not to offer me the indignity 
 of an arrest," shrieked Czibulka, completely dis 
 regarding my luminous interruption. " I am an 
 attache" of the Austrian embassy! " 
 
 That, I admitted even then to myself only, 
 however was a good shot. The men that had 
 a hold on him dropped their grip without a second 
 of hesitation, and the sergeant turned a sharp 
 eye toward me. 
 
 " Monsieur," I replied in answer to that un 
 spoken inquiry, " this man may or may not be 
 all that he says. But, for that matter, I may be 
 the American ambassador. However, does either 
 one of us look our part? " 
 
 I saw the sergeant smile grimly. 
 
 " Attend a moment, gentlemen," said he, and,
 
 The Voice of the Prince 209 
 
 beckoning the now panic-stricken drivers toward 
 him, stepped over to his subordinates for a whis 
 pered consultation, leaving the now somewhat 
 chastened Czibulka almost shoulder to shoulder 
 with me. 
 
 " Well," I said pleasantly, " this has been a 
 merry evening, has it not, monsieur? " 
 
 Czibulka glared. 
 
 "You think yourself very clever no?." he 
 growled. " You have managed to get us both 
 arrested ; you have made of us a joke and what 
 have you gained? " 
 
 " Why, monsieur," I responded, smiling a little 
 triumphantly, " as to that, a good deal, it seems 
 to me. You understand, I have entirely spoiled 
 your chance of learning the address of the Countess 
 Routkovsky and her friends." 
 
 But just here I brought myself up short, the 
 smile frozen on my lips. For I saw what an ass 
 I had been at the start of that wild ride: I had 
 neglected to get from Stephanie that address, and 
 now I was quite as ignorant of her whereabouts 
 as was this double traitor Czibulka, who stood 
 uncomfortably at my side! 
 
 Without a word, I turned and bolted up the 
 street. 
 
 It was the earlier story over again, but with a 
 good deal more emphasis. They yelled and rattled
 
 210 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 after me, and one of the gendarmes or, more 
 likely, it was Czibulka discharged a shot that 
 whistled unpleasantly close to my head. Through 
 the midnight streets I ran on and on unstopped 
 by the gay pleasure-lovers still enjoying them 
 selves at the cafes now with the shouts growing 
 fainter, now with the pursuit waxing stronger as 
 other night-prowling keepers of the peace took 
 up the chase and swelled the army of my enemies. 
 I rounded corner after corner, doubling, advancing, 
 falling over curb-stones and dashing into alleys, 
 but always, in a general way, working toward the 
 heart of the city with some idea of mingling at 
 last in the great crowds of the boulevards and 
 gaining, perhaps, my own hotel. It was the 
 blindest and maddest chase of all my checkered 
 career, but it was a winning one, and, when I 
 finally saw the rear of the Madeleine down the 
 empty street before me, the ultimate echoes of 
 pursuit had died away, and I was once more 
 free. 
 
 Somehow I had preserved my hat perhaps 
 through the subconscious memory of how the loss 
 of Czibulka s had injured his appearance and 
 lessened the force of his claims to respectability. 
 I was panting hard, of course, and dripping with 
 sweat, but my light over-coat served to conceal 
 the lamentable condition of my broad shirt front,
 
 The Voice of the Prince 211 
 
 and I was concluding that I was at least in form 
 to enter by the bar-door to the Chatham when I 
 reflected that the Baron knew my stopping place 
 and that, if Czibulka had been able by this time 
 to get into communication with him, he would 
 most likely have sent the agents de ville ahead of 
 me there. 
 
 Nor, indeed, had I any mind to rest. Somewhere 
 in this mad French city, Stephanie was in danger 
 and despair, and somewhere I must find her. 
 
 My only clew lay in the corner where I had left 
 her the night before: the junction of the Rue 
 Vivienne and the Rue du 4 Septembre. Thither, 
 after some blunders and much questioning of the 
 people on the boulevards, I made my way, and 
 there, on arriving, I found, what I had not noticed 
 in the turmoil of my previous visit, but what 
 complicated not a little my already almost 
 hopelessly complicated quest: the corner was the 
 meeting of not only two, but three streets: the 
 Rues du 4 Septembre and Vivienne and the Rue 
 St. Augustin. 
 
 Desperately I looked this way and that, but 
 there was not a token to help me in my search. 
 Even at so short a distance from the boulevards, 
 there rested upon the streets about me the utter 
 silence and the emptiness of an ancient church 
 yard. On either hand rose only tall, blank walls
 
 212 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 or the heavy iron blinds of closed shops, and, as I 
 began to wander aimlessly by corner after corner, 
 turning hither and yon without purpose or plan, 
 there was no company for my hesitant advances 
 save the sound of my own steps on the clanging 
 stone. 
 
 And then, suddenly, the silence was hideously 
 broken. 
 
 I had passed a dim street-lamp and had seen, 
 by a blue and white sign, that I was invading the 
 Rue Colbert. All about me were still the blank 
 walls or shuttered houses and just before me rose 
 Number 8, a blind-faced duplicate of its dozen 
 neighbours. But high above, from that very 
 house rang out and boomed forth and cried and 
 blasphemously echoed and re-echoed a single 
 high, discordant, uncanny voice the ghost of a 
 voice singing wildly and breaking woefully on 
 the high notes: 
 
 " Ma jolie Dirce Choux-Choux, 
 
 Elle fail " 
 
 It was the voice I had heard the night before 
 in L Abbaye : the voice of the Mad Prince singing 
 the mattchiche out of tune from that high-barred 
 window in the Rue Colbert.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 EXIT THE COLONEL 
 " They all lie in wait for blood." 
 
 THE voice ceased as suddenly as it had begun 
 and left me standing there in the ghostly street, 
 struck cold with a horror and yet wonder. For 
 quite a minute I must have waited, gaping up at 
 that distant barred window, like a statue of 
 amazement, and then the next thing of which I 
 was perfectly conscious was a hot rush of mad, 
 unreasoning activity: I was pounding upon the 
 oaken front door of Number 8 with both my bare 
 fists, and kicking wildly at its base with the 
 stubbed toes of my light patent-leather boots. 
 
 Of course, I got no answer to my efforts, and, 
 as my strength thus fatuously expended itself, I 
 realized the reason. Whatever else of the un 
 expected my wild experiences of the past two days 
 and nights might lead me now to look for, I 
 surely could scarcely suppose that a house await 
 ing an attack would open to a violent hammering 
 at its closed portal. 
 
 And yet I must enter. It was relatively certain 
 
 213
 
 214 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 that my cross-eyed friend Revicta, who had twisted 
 himself into a worm and ridden behind our cab 
 on the night before, would see to it that the 
 neighbourhood whither he had tracked us should 
 be more or less continuously watched. It was 
 even more certain that, if such a state of espionage 
 existed, I had been observed and followed from 
 the moment I had reached this locality. And it 
 would have been betting on a certainty to wager 
 that, had the Prince s voice and my rappings been 
 noted by any spy, Stephanie and her little garrison 
 would soon need all the assistance that I could 
 give them. 
 
 In the last forty-eight hours I had completely 
 forgotten how to haggle over niceties. Without 
 further hesitation, I now produced my knife and 
 quietly but systematically set about picking the 
 lock of that door. 
 
 To my amazement, this was far more speedily 
 effective than all my pounding had been. I was 
 bending over, trying to see the lock, and inserting, 
 for only the second time, the stoutest blade of my 
 pocket-knife, when, apparently at some slight 
 sound that had betrayed my purpose, a bolt was 
 shot back and the door was flung open with such 
 abruptness that I almost pitched headlong into 
 the arms of the giant that was responsible for 
 this unconventional welcome.
 
 Exit the Colonel 215 
 
 There was a low light in that vestibule and by 
 it, as I staggered forward, I caught the gleam of 
 a blade in the big man s heavy fist caught it 
 just in time to catch, also, the big man himself 
 in the pit of the stomach with my flying hand, to 
 shove him spluttering and gasping against the 
 grim wall and, thereby, to save my own life. 
 
 The man was Colonel Lichtenstein. 
 
 I must have given him a harder dig than I had 
 at the moment of action supposed, since, for quite 
 an appreciable instant, he leaned there, unable to 
 move, the shooting-jacket, which he wore, tossing 
 over his great chest and, back of the jungle of 
 his fierce moustaches, his angry eyes gone filmy and 
 his rugged, weather-beaten face turned to a nasty 
 white. For my own part, I, too, was sufficiently 
 winded not to court immediate continuation of 
 hostilities and entirely at sea as to how I should 
 deal with a man that might insist upon fighting 
 with me when I, as a matter of fact, had come 
 there to enlist in his cause. 
 
 " Well," I smiled a little feebly, " I can t call 
 this greeting of yours a particularly cordial one, 
 Colonel Lichtenstein." 
 
 His answer was a thundering roar of rage and a 
 bound forward with upraised knife. 
 
 Then, certainly, he would have had me: I had 
 drawn no weapon, believing that my motive of
 
 216 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 friendship was guard enough against attack, and 
 was altogether taken by surprise. But, just as 
 he was in the act of coming down on me with his 
 pointed steel, I heard the scream of a woman and, 
 from the inner hall, Stephanie dashed between us 
 so quickly as almost to receive in her own heart 
 the Austrian s descending blade. 
 
 " Stop!" she cried in a tone that demanded 
 instant obedience. " Stop! " - And, pushing the 
 Colonel back into his corner, she turned upon him, 
 drawn up to her full height, her scarlet mouth 
 curled in scorn. " Is this the way that you are 
 accustomed to receive friends? " she demanded 
 haughtily. 
 
 Lichtenstein snarled impotently. 
 
 " A friend? You say, a friend? " he sneered. 
 
 But she disregarded the imputation. 
 
 " And is this the way that you protect our cause, 
 Colonel Lichtenstein? " she continued. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," replied the Austrian, getting a 
 better hold upon both his emotions and his French, 
 " when a stranger to me has forced his way into 
 this house, what, I pray you, would you have me 
 to do?" 
 
 " I should not have you neglect the door, at 
 any rate, Colonel," she replied. 
 
 She nodded toward it, and, taking her meaning, 
 I stepped forward and shot into its socket the
 
 Exit the Colonel 217 
 
 forgotten bolt. But my very quickness in read 
 ing her wishes seemed only to shake what little 
 reserve Colonel Lichtenstein had been able to 
 muster. 
 
 " You tell me, mademoiselle," he cried in a 
 voice of disbelief, " that this man, whom I have 
 never seen before, is a friend to our cause? " 
 
 " I tell you that he is a young American, whom 
 I met when I was in Philadelphia and who, as I 
 said when I returned here this evening, warned 
 me of Czibulka s treachery and saved me, at the 
 risk of his own life, from my pursuers." 
 
 " But you may remember that you added, 
 mademoiselle, that this young American was 
 unaware of your address." 
 
 Stephanie flushed. 
 
 " Nor did I give it to him," she declared. 
 
 " Then how- began the Colonel. 
 
 But I now saw that it was time for me to take 
 a hand in the game of words. 
 
 " Monsieur," said I, "if you have any more 
 insults to offer, you will be so good as to address 
 them not to a woman, but to me." 
 
 He turned quickly, still with his ugly answer. 
 
 " With all my heart, monsieur," he answered. 
 " Perhaps, then, you will be able to tell me how 
 it was that, if the story mademoiselle told me 
 earlier this evening is the truth
 
 218 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 " Confine yourself to me, Colonel. The story 
 is the truth." 
 
 " How then, monsieur, I say, did you find this 
 house? " 
 
 I knew at once that the facts would be about 
 the most hurtful things I could lay before him, 
 and yet my brain refused, for once, to invent the 
 more convincing lie. All I could do was to say 
 to him : 
 
 " I remembered where I had left mademoiselle 
 last night. I went there. I scoured the nearby 
 streets. I chanced on the Rue Colbert and heard, 
 from a window in this house, the voice that I had 
 heard at L Abbaye last evening, singing the 
 mattchiche." 
 
 Under his great moustaches the giant s sneer 
 broadened slowly into a grin of incredulity. He 
 took one step toward me and raised again his 
 knife, ready to pass it through my body at any 
 second. 
 
 " And, monsieur, you really expect me to 
 believe a story as absurd as that? " he demanded. 
 
 Stephanie laid a restraining hand upon his 
 arm. 
 
 " I expect you to believe it, Colonel Lichten- 
 stein," she calmly admonished him. 
 
 He looked at her hard and almost fiercely, it 
 seemed in the shadows of the vestibule, but her
 
 Exit the Colonel 219 
 
 large black eyes returned his gaze without the 
 slightest tremor. 
 
 There was a moment of absolute silence as they 
 stood thus, and then I saw, with relief, his arm 
 gently slipping to his side when, from somewhere 
 out in that darkened street there came low 
 enough, no doubt, but to our strained ears distinct 
 and piercing the sound of a calling whistle. 
 
 It was a full moment more that we stood thus, 
 looking at one another, wide-eyed, but then the 
 Colonel broke the spell with a loud oath. 
 
 " So! " he cried, turning first to the Countess 
 and then to me. " A friend is he? A friend are 
 you ? That sounds like it, does it not, mademoi 
 selle? By God, you ve trapped us, have you? 
 You ve" 
 
 But just at that time he could get no further, 
 for now, again from outside, came another sound 
 that drove the blood from our faces and stilled our 
 hearts abruptly the sound of many light foot 
 falls, of men running, with an effort at quiet, 
 down the paved street. 
 
 Nearer and yet nearer they came, we three 
 waiting like figures in a tableau. They reached 
 the house. They reached the door. They stopped 
 short before it. 
 
 And then came a gentle, but rapid and im 
 perative, tapping on that great oaken barrier.
 
 220 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 Two thoughts alone possessed my mind : first, 
 that I was certain to die at the hands of either 
 the Colonel or his enemies, and, second, that I 
 deserved no better portion. My folly had brought 
 this thing to pass. In my last desperation to find 
 Stephanie, I had thrown caution to the four 
 winds of Heaven and had been followed to this 
 house by some spy just as I had anticipated 
 too late while I was pounding for entrance 
 left to guard the street corner at which Schram 
 Revicta had seen the Countess and myself the 
 night before. 
 
 The Colonel made another move forward. 
 Why have you not answered me? " he bel 
 lowed, his eyes red with flame, his face thrust 
 close to mine. " Are you a coward as well as a 
 spy? " 
 
 I straightened myself. 
 
 "Sir " I began. 
 
 But a second knocking, louder and more im 
 perative than the first, drowned my coming words 
 and choked my voice to silence. 
 
 " Yes," the Colonel roared on, "a spy and a 
 coward! A dirty spy in the pay of de Hetzen- 
 dorf; and a spy must die the death of a 
 spy!" 
 
 Stephanie caught his wrist. 
 
 " You shall not speak so! " she cried, her eyes
 
 Exit the Colonel 221 
 
 flashing, her face aglow and her whole body so 
 athrill with anger that even then I knew I should 
 bear the picture to my grave. " I tell you that he 
 is my friend, who fails to defend himself only 
 because he would not harm another friend of 
 mine! " 
 
 "Oh, no! " laughed the Colonel at the height 
 of passion. "Oh, no, mademoiselle!" He 
 tried to twist his hand free from her grip, and I 
 watched steadily for a wavering of his glance from 
 me so that I might run in upon him. " No longer 
 am / a friend of yours ! I see it all now ! I know 
 now where this American got his information 
 and how and why he got it. You have sold us to 
 him and to his master: you love this boy! " 
 
 That last phrase tore away any lingering shred 
 of my discretion. I could not draw a weapon 
 before he would have stabbed me. But my fists 
 clenched instinctively and I drew back to 
 strike. 
 
 Just as the knocking broke out once more and 
 began to rain madly and openly upon the door, it 
 was Stephanie who again interposed. I could see 
 that it was costing her pride no little price, but 
 she bit her lip and, standing bravely between, 
 made her final plea. 
 
 " Messieurs," she whispered, her cheeks turned 
 pale again, "desist at least postpone this
 
 222 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 quarrel! Consider our desperate straits! Re 
 member the crisis! Listen, oh, listen to that 
 knocking ! We must act at once together ! 
 The life of the Prince and the freedom of Hungary 
 are in our hands! " 
 
 She gave me one look and I drew and handed 
 her my revolver. 
 
 Then she turned to Lichtenstein. 
 
 " And you," she pleaded, her other hand ex 
 tended "you, Colonel for the Prince and 
 Hungary? " 
 
 But the Colonel was past all power of persuasion. 
 His rage seemed to swell hotter at the sight of my 
 obedience. 
 
 " Not I! " he shouted. " My Prince and your 
 country may rot for all of me ! I ask you, made 
 moiselle, for the last time, do you love this 
 boy? " 
 
 Then I should have made for him, but Stephanie 
 waved me back. She looked the Colonel full in 
 the face ; her lip trembled, but her eyes were bright 
 and her voice firm as she gave her answer. 
 
 " Yes," she said proudly, " I love him." 
 
 Before anyone could utter another word, the 
 whole thing was over. With one sweep of his long, 
 left arm, Lichtenstein tossed her against the 
 farther wall and charged upon me, the keen knife 
 uplifted. As, unarmed, I ducked to tackle him,
 
 Exit the Colonel 223 
 
 I saw Stephanie raise my revolver. There was a 
 flash and a roar, and, through the strangling smoke 
 that filled the vestibule, I saw the Colonel lying 
 at my feet.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 
 
 " And he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of 
 the captains, and the shouting." 
 
 STEPHANIE did not faint. Instead, she only 
 came over to the body, stooped, examined it, and, 
 to my wide, inquiring eyes, nodded her answer: 
 
 Yes," she said, "he is quite dead" -and 
 handing me my smoking revolver, proceeded to 
 disarm the still form before her. " One less to 
 fight for us," she added, " and it must be a 
 fight now." 
 
 It must indeed, I reflected. The sound of that 
 shot had stilled momentarily the knocking", and 
 the spies themselves anxious to avoid the police 
 - had apparently withdrawn for a council of 
 war. But I knew that flight was impossible and 
 that, with the powerful influences at their com 
 mand, our enemies would not long hesitate before 
 their final attack. There was a telephone in the 
 hallway and, as my eye caught it, I ran that way. 
 
 " What now? " asked Stephanie. 
 
 224
 
 The Fight on the Stairs 225 
 
 " My friend the detective," I made answer over 
 my shoulder. " She is at the Chatham." 
 
 And I took the receiver from its hook. 
 
 But my voice and my French gave way so 
 completely that, had Stephanie not helped me out, 
 I should never have given that number. At last, 
 however, I did get the hotel and, after what 
 seemed an interminable wait, heard Frances s 
 glad " Hello!" 
 
 "This is Burton!" I called. 
 
 Yes yes," she answered. 
 
 "I am at No. 8, Rue Colbert. There is a 
 fight due at any minute now." 
 
 " There is? " came the exulting response. " At 
 Number 8, Rue Colbert. Very well, I shall " 
 
 And that ended it. There was a little snapping 
 sound, followed by complete silence. I jolted 
 the hook; I yelled into the transmitter; I swore 
 roundly at the unresponsive exchange, and then, 
 at last, the truth came to me : the wire had been 
 cut. 
 
 Stephanie shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "It is all on the knees of the gods," she said 
 quietly. " Attend here a moment while I go to 
 arm the Prince. It is necessary that he should not 
 risk his life by appearing until we shall have 
 reached the last ditch." 
 
 She ran speedily up the stairs, but soon returned
 
 226 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 to the first landing where, dragging a table and a 
 sofa from the nearest room, we made a rough 
 barricade that commanded the first flight. Above 
 us the steps coiled steeply, a wide well between 
 them reaching from the first floor to the roof. 
 As we paused in our labours, I looked first from 
 the right side of our crazy breastwork and then 
 turned to Stephanie. 
 
 There are but three of us? " I asked. 
 
 " But two until the Prince s room is 
 reached." 
 
 Then our only chance is to clean them up 
 entirely and make away before the gendarmes 
 arrive." 
 
 She looked at me quizzically. 
 
 "You think that chance a small one?" she 
 inquired. 
 
 " I don t quite see how they dare to force it on 
 us." 
 
 " Ah, my friend, you do not realize the powers 
 behind them. They would prefer not to shoot, 
 but if they must shoot and bring upon themselves 
 the gendarmes, then not a paper in Paris will 
 dare to print a word of this, and they will be 
 under arrest no longer than it takes their am 
 bassador to call upon the Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs." 
 
 I thought things over.
 
 The Fight on the Stairs 227 
 
 " Look here," I lied presently, " this is a 
 strategic position: one man can easily hold it 
 alone until the police arrive. There is no reason 
 in the world why you 
 
 But she put both her little hands upon my 
 
 p 
 
 shoulders. 
 
 " No, no! " she cried. "It is the other way, 
 my friend the other way ! This is no cause of 
 yours. You have risked enough already. Already 
 you have served me so much better than I de 
 serve ! Leave me now ! You have seen that I can 
 shoot" 
 
 " What? " I laughed. " My dear mademoiselle, 
 I could not go if I wished to, and if I could at this 
 moment walk out of this house unharmed, do 
 you think so ill of me as to suppose that I should 
 be willing to do it? " 
 
 Her hold slipped down my arms until our 
 hands met. The only light was in the hall below, 
 but out of the semi-darkness I saw her great 
 eyes shining like the stars. 
 
 " It means death," she said simply. 
 
 " With you," I whispered. 
 
 And then I felt her arms about my neck, her 
 breast to mine, and all the glory of her scarlet 
 mouth responding to my kiss. 
 
 Almost roughly I tore myself away. 
 
 "Go, now!" I commanded. "You must go
 
 228 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 up the stairs. They may be here at any moment 
 and you must not stay! " 
 
 Her only answer was a peal of laughter the 
 assured laughter of a woman that has found that 
 of which death cannot rob her and, just as 
 I began again my protests, with one loud crash 
 the door was burst open and five men dashed 
 into the vestibule and through that to the 
 hall. 
 
 It had passed all discussion now: the red 
 instant had arrived. 
 
 The attackers stumbled over Lichtenstein s 
 dead body and, before they had recovered them 
 selves, we two, from the darkness, fired upon 
 them in the light. One man pitched headlong 
 and lay still: my aim had been faulty, but 
 Stephanie s had not missed. 
 
 Then came the whirlwind. Through the smoke 
 I saw the flash of their replying fire: I saw the 
 remaining four, Bolfras at their head and Revicta 
 close behind, charge the stairs toward us; I saw 
 my second shot tumble Schram backward down 
 a half-dozen steps, but I also felt a sharp stab 
 in my left shoulder and knew that Czibulka s 
 first bullet had found a lodging-place. 
 
 Stephanie caught my hand and, kicking the 
 table down upon the enemy, I followed her to the 
 next landing, letting them have a few ineffective
 
 The Fight on the Stairs 229 
 
 shots en route. There we made another stand, 
 but a brief one, and so, at last, with Stephanie s 
 revolver empty and but one shot left in mine, we 
 came to the top of the stairs. 
 
 It was a small space, scarce six feet square, the 
 wall on one hand, the door to the Prince s room 
 on the other, and the front divided between the 
 opening to the steep stairs and a frail railing 
 that gave upon the broad, deep well, a drop of 
 three stories to the ground floor. Leaning down, 
 I fired at the trio pounding upward, knocked over 
 one of them and had the satisfaction of seeing a 
 second turn and run. 
 
 Leaping upward through the suffocating smoke, 
 Bolfras Czibulka, in the almost complete darkness, 
 snapped his revolver in my face, and, when its 
 only response was the click of the hammer on an 
 empty shell, tossed it across the railing, so that I 
 heard it crash far down below, and then, the last 
 remaining member of the attacking party, sprang 
 on to meet me, an unarmed man against a man 
 unarmed. 
 
 It was a death grapple, and we both knew it. 
 I felt his hot breath beating against my face, his 
 iron-sinewed legs twisted about my own, and, 
 while one corded hand gripped bitterly my 
 wounded shoulder, the other sought my gasping 
 throat to strangle me. I did my best. I got a
 
 230 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 good wrestling hold, and tried to down him, 
 but his strength was greater than my skill. Fro 
 and to, and back and forth we swayed and 
 struggled, in a horrid straining silence, now totter 
 ing over the stairs, and again tossing into a corner, 
 where, helpless in the darkness to aid me, Ste 
 phanie was cowering. Fro and to and back and 
 forth and then we crashed against the frail 
 railing, which alone stood between us and that 
 awful descent. 
 
 The light woodwork creaked, and spoke a word 
 that, all at once, I understood. 
 
 Holding the man there, I threw back my head 
 and let his fingers at my throat. 
 
 The ruse worked. Both his hands flew to grasp 
 my neck ; to my sweating neck ; in the joy of ap 
 parent victory his legs untwisted from my own 
 and I was free to put forth all my strength, to 
 smash him through that railing, and to pitch 
 him headlong down the well. 
 
 Stephanie s arms closed about me; her lips 
 sought mine, and so we stood as, up the stairs, 
 bounded Frances Baird, a lantern in her hand 
 and, just behind her, the Baron de Hetzen- 
 dorf. 
 
 " Are you all right? " she cried. " Are you " 
 
 Her violent query died unfinished. 
 
 The interruption came from behind the door
 
 The Fight on the Stairs 231 
 
 to the Prince s room. It was a single, high, dis 
 cordant voice the ghost of a voice, singing 
 wildly, breaking woefully on the high notes, and 
 echoing and blasphemously re-echoing through 
 that dreadful house of carnage : 
 
 " Ma jolie Dirct Choux-Choux, 
 Ellefait 
 
 And then a single pistol shot and silence. 
 
 We forced the door and found him the man 
 that I had known as Wilhelm Jaeger lying 
 before it, a warm revolver in his clenched hand 
 and a bullet through his head. 
 
 Stephanie knelt beside the hunched body, over 
 which Frances s lantern cast a steady, pallid glow. 
 
 She spoke quietly. 
 
 The Prince is dead," she whispered. 
 
 The Prince? " repeated the ambassador. 
 That is no more the Prince than I am. This 
 is a crack-brained fellow named Keller, who used 
 to be in our secret service. Why, it s the man that, 
 I have just learned, our embassy sent out from 
 Washington to look after the Prince! If that is 
 the man you have been harbouring as the Prince, 
 then " 
 
 It was Frances who finished his sentence. 
 
 Then," said she, " the Prince Imperial lies 
 buried in the potter s field at Mountville."
 
 232 My Heart and Stephanie 
 
 And that, I suppose, is the explanation. After 
 the ambassador had pulled all sorts of hidden 
 wires, and, by the aid and assistance of his 
 whole empire, quieted the general slaughter of 
 that last evening, we had time fully to confirm 
 what he said. Keller, as Wilhelm Jaeger, had 
 gone clean mad after he had seen the Prince 
 killed and, mistaken by Czibulka for Rudolf, so 
 thoroughly believed himself to have assumed 
 the identity of the victim whom he did, 
 indeed, in some degree resemble that he 
 easily convinced the two other conspirators 
 who, like Bolfras, had never seen the Prince at 
 home. 
 
 But, for my part, it all seems to matter very 
 little. The world has gone its way unguessing; 
 the ready ear of gossip has caught no echo of 
 our sword-play; the map of Europe is unchanged, 
 and I, looking out from my study-window upon 
 the silent April night in this quiet Philadelphia 
 suburb, read and re-read the cable-message that 
 tells me that Stephanie is coming by the next 
 boat, dream of how she first kissed me upon the 
 darkened stairway of the Rat Mort, and wonder 
 vainly whether indeed I ever saw the great jewel, 
 gleaming in the death-house at Mountville; 
 whether I was ever an accessory-after-the-fact to 
 Frances Baird robbing the ambassador s safe in
 
 The Fight on the Stairs 233 
 
 Paris, and whether I ever heard the voice of the 
 " Mad Prince " singing the mattchiche out of 
 tune behind that high-barred window in the Rue 
 Colbert. 
 
 THE END.
 
 From 
 
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 LIST OF FICTION 
 
 CAMERON OF LOCHIEL 
 
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 frontispiece in color by PI. C. Edwards. 
 
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 " One of the most fascinating novels of recent days." Boston 
 Journal. 
 
 " A classic twentieth-century romance." New York Commer 
 cial Advertiser. 
 
 THE FORGE IN THE FOREST 
 
 Being the Narrative of the Acadian Ranger, Jean de Mer, 
 Seigneur de Briart, and how he crossed the Black Abbe\ and 
 of his adventures in a strange fellowship. Illustrated by Henry 
 Sandham, R. C. A. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top $1.50 
 
 A story of pure love and heroic adventure. 
 
 BY THE MARSHES OF MINAS 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50 
 Most of these romances are in the author s lighter and more 
 
 playful vein; each is a unit of absorbing interest and exquisite 
 
 workmanship.
 
 L. C. PAGE <& COMPANY S 
 
 A SISTER TO EVANGELINE 
 
 Being the Story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into 
 exile with the villagers of Grand Pre\ 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, illustrated . . . $1.50 
 Swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep pas 
 sion, and searching analysis characterize this strong novel. 
 
 WORKS OF 
 
 LILIAN BELL 
 
 CAROLINA LEE 
 
 With a frontispiece in color from an oil painting by Dora 
 Wheeler Keith. Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover. $1.50 
 " A Christian Science novel, full of action, alive with incident 
 
 and brisk with pithy dialogue and humor." Boston Transcript. 
 " A charming portrayal of the attractive life of the South, 
 
 refreshing as a breeze that blows through a pine forest." 
 
 Albany Times-Union. 
 
 HOPE LORING 
 
 Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover .... $1.50 
 " Tall, slender, and athletic, fragile-looking, yet with nerves 
 and sinews of steel under the velvet flesh, frank as a boy and 
 tender and beautiful as a woman, free and independent, yet not 
 bold such is Hope Loring, by long odds the subtlest study 
 that has yet been made of the American girl." Dorothy Dix, 
 in the New York American. 
 
 ABROAD WITH THE JIMMIES 
 
 With a portrait, in duogravure, of the author. 
 Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover .... $1.50 
 " Full of ozone, of snap, of ginger, of swing and momentum." 
 Chicago Evening Post. 
 
 AT HOME WITH THE JARDINES 
 
 A companion volume to " Abroad with the Jimmies." 
 Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover .... $1.50 
 " Bits of gay humor, sunny, whimsical philosophy, and keen 
 indubitable insight into the less evident aspects and workings 
 of pure human nature, with a slender thread of a cleverly 
 extraneous love story, keep the interest of the reader fresh." - 
 Chicago Record-Herald.
 
 LIST OF FICTION 
 
 THE INTERFERENCE OF PATRICIA 
 
 With a frontispiece from drawing by Frank T. Merrill. 
 
 Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . $1.25 
 
 " There is life and action and brilliancy and dash and clever 
 ness and a keen appreciation of business ways in this story." 
 Grand Rapids Herald. 
 
 " A story full of keen and flashing satire." Chicago Record- 
 Herald . 
 
 A BOOK OF GIRLS 
 
 With a frontispiece. 
 
 Small 12mo, cloth, decorative cover . . . . $1.25 
 
 " The stories are all eventful and have effective humor." - 
 New York Sun. 
 
 " Lilian Bell surely understands girls, for she depicts all the 
 variations of girl nature so charmingly." Chicago Journal. 
 
 The above two volumes boxed in special holiday dress, per set, 
 $2.50. 
 
 WORKS OF 
 
 NATHAN GALLIZIER 
 
 THE SORCERESS OF ROME 
 
 With four drawings in color by " The Kinneys." 
 
 Cloth decorative, illustrated $1.50 
 
 The love-story of Otto III., the boy emperor, and Stephania, 
 wife of the Senator Crescentius of Rome, has already been made 
 the basis of various German poems and plays. 
 
 Mr. Gallizier has used it for the main theme of " The Sorceress 
 of Rome," the second book of his trilogy of romances on the 
 medieval life of Italy. In detail and finish the book is a brilliant 
 piece of work, describing clearly an exciting and strenuous 
 period. 
 
 CASTEL DEL MONTE 
 
 With six illustrations by H. C. Edwards. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50 
 
 A powerful romance of the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in 
 Italy and the overthrow of Manfred by Charles of Anjou, the 
 champion of Pope Clement IV. 
 
 "There is color; there is sumptuous word painting in these 
 pages; the action is terrific at times; vividness and life are in 
 every part; and brilliant descriptions entertain the reader and 
 give a singular fascination to the tale." Chicago Record-Herald.
 
 L. C. PAGE &> COMPANY S 
 
 WORKS OF 
 
 MORLEY ROBERTS 
 
 RACHEL MARR 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50 
 
 " A novel of tremendous force, with a style that is sure, 
 luxuriant, compelling, full of color and vital force." Elia W. 
 Peattie, in Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " In atmosphere, if nothing else, the story is absolutely per 
 fect." Boston Transcript. 
 
 LADY PENELOPE 
 
 With nine illustrations by Arthur W. Brown. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50 
 
 " A fresh and original bit of comedy as amusing as it is auda 
 cious." Boston Transcript. 
 
 THE IDLERS 
 
 With frontispiece in color by John C. Frohn. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50 
 
 " It is as absorbing as the devil. Mr. Roberts gives us the 
 antithesis of Rachel Marr in an equally masterful and convin 
 cing work." The New York Sun. 
 
 THE PROMOTION OF THE ADMIRAL 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50 
 
 " If any one writes better sea stories than Mr. Roberts, we 
 
 don t know who it is; and if there is a better sea story of its kind 
 
 than this it would be a joy to have the pleasure of reading it." 
 
 New York Sun. 
 
 THE FLYING CLOUD 
 
 Cloth decorative, with a colored frontispiece . . $1.50 
 When " The Flying Cloud " was published, the New York 
 Times Saturday Review said: " It is the drama of the sea: human 
 nature stripped naked by salt water alchemy and painted as 
 only the author or Joseph Conrad could paint it. ... A corking 
 story, a ripping good story! " 
 
 THE BLUE PETER 
 
 With frontispiece by Henry Roth. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50 
 
 Again Morley Roberts has hoisted The Blue Peter, and sailing 
 orders aboard, has started on a prosperous voyage to the scenes 
 of his earliest popularity. 
 
 " It is not too much to say of Morley Roberts that he is one of 
 the very few writers of to-day who live up to the best traditions 
 of the sea story." The Bookman.
 
 LIST OF FICTION 
 
 WORKS OF 
 
 ALICE MacGOWAN AND GRACE Mac- 
 GOWAN COOKE 
 
 RETURN 
 
 A STORY OF THE SEA ISLANDS IN 1739. With six illustrations 
 
 by C. D. Williams. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth $1.50 
 
 " So rich in color is this story, so crowded with figures, it seems 
 like a bit of old Italian wall painting, a piece of modern tapestry, 
 rather than a modern fabric woven deftly from the threads of fact 
 and fancy gathered up in this new and essentially practical 
 country, and therein lies its distinctive value and excellence." 
 N. Y. Sun. 
 
 THE GRAPPLE 
 
 With frontispiece in color by Arthur W. Brown. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50 
 
 " The movement of the tale is swift and dramatic. The story is 
 so original, so strong, and so finely told that it deserves a large 
 and thoughtful public. It is a book to read with both enjoyment 
 and enlightenment." N. Y. Times Saturday Review of Books. 
 
 THE LAST WORD 
 
 Illustrated with seven portraits of the heroine. 
 Library 12mo, cloth, decorative cover .... $1.50 
 " When one receives full measure to overflowing of delight in a 
 tender, charming, and wholly fascinating new piece of fiction, the 
 enthusiasm is apt to come uppermost." Louisville Post. 
 
 HULDAH 
 
 With illustrations by Fanny Y. Cory. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative .... $1.50 
 
 Here we have the great-hearted, capable woman of the Texas 
 plains dispensing food and genial philosophy to rough-and-ready 
 cowboys. Her sympathy takes the form of happy laughter, and 
 her delightfully funny phrases amuse the fancy and stick in one s 
 memory. 
 
 WORKS OF OTHER AUTHORS 
 
 RICHARD ELLIOTT, FINANCIER 
 
 By GEORGE CARLING. 
 
 Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated . . . $1.50 
 
 " Clever in plot and effective in style. The author has seized 
 
 on some of the most sensational features of modern finance and 
 
 uses them pretty much as Alexandre Dumas did." N. Y. Post.
 
 io L. C. PAGE &> COMPANY S 
 
 ANNE OF GREEN GABLES 
 
 By L. M. MONTGOMERY. Illustrated by M. A. and W. A. 
 
 J. Claus. 12mo ... .... $1.50 
 
 " Anne of Green Gables " is beyond question the most popular 
 girl heroine in recent years. Poets, statesmen, humorists, critics, 
 and the great public have lost their hearts to the charming Anne. 
 " Anne of Green Gables " is not a book of a season, to attain a 
 wide popularity for a brief space and sink into oblivion with many 
 another " best seller," but its literary merit is such that it is 
 bound to have a permanent place in literature and continue to 
 increase in popularity with each succeeding season. 
 
 " In Anne of Green Gables you will find the dearest and most 
 moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice." Mark 
 Twain in a letter to Francis Wilson. 
 
 " I can hardly tell you how much I enjoyed the book, and I can 
 heartily recommend it to my friends who are not ashamed when 
 from time to time they find the eyes suffuse and the page grow 
 blurred at the pathos of the story." Sir Louis H. Davies of the 
 Supreme Court of Canada. 
 
 " I take it as a great test of the worth of the book that while the 
 young people are rummaging all over the house looking for Anne, 
 the head of the family has carried her off to read on his way to 
 town." Bliss Carman. 
 
 THE CALL OF THE SOUTH 
 
 By ROBERT LEE DURHAM. 
 
 Cloth decorative, illustrated by Henry Roth . . $1.50 
 
 An absorbing and intensely realistic story dealing with the race 
 problem in this country. 
 
 " A terrific story but a true one this is what the thinking 
 world is saying concerning The Call of the South. " The 
 Baltimore Sun. 
 
 " The force of the book is tremendous. In dramatic power it 
 equals Tolstoi s Resurrection. " Rev. Martin D. Hardin, 
 Pastor Third Presbyterian Church, Chicago. 
 
 " The speech of Rutledge before the Senate is splendid. By 
 itself it is one of the best arguments against social equality that 
 has ever been printed. If not already done, it should be printed 
 in a pamphlet by itself and given world-wide distribution." 
 The Louisville Courier- Journal. 
 
 " The Call of the South is a great book. In it Mr. Durham 
 holds the mirror of future possible events up to us in a fascinating, 
 dramatic form. The plot of the story would alone be sufficient 
 to insure its success." Birmingham Age-Herald.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
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