Blood Royal Read online

  By the time that I reached the flat it was two o’clock.

  All was quiet and in darkness, but I went into Hanbury’s bedroom, to tell him that I was back and to give him my serious news.

  The room was empty, and the bed was untouched. I went to the other rooms, but neither George nor Rowley was in the flat.

  Presently I roused the butler.

  He told me that they had gone out some five and a half hours ago: he had an idea, he added, that George had received some summons, for they had left hastily and, just before their going, he had heard the telephone bell.

  7: The Four Footmen

  I think it was natural that I should be greatly concerned.

  The Countess Dresden would have told me if she had spoken with George, and I did not think it like Sully to use the telephone. The message, then, could hardly have come from a friend. Now George was no fool. If he had indeed gone out as the result of a message from someone he did not know, the summons must have been such as he dared not ignore. It seemed to me unpleasantly likely that my name had been taken in vain. If someone had spoken from a distance, saying that I was in trouble and giving George Hanbury a message which purported to come from me, be he never so suspicious, he would have had no option but to obey the call. I reflected dismally that my lady was perfectly right. We were not safe in Vigil: Johann had made up his mind to cut our claws.

  I made my way into the loggia and stood looking out into the night.

  Once again the sense of helplessness bore down what spirit I had. If George did not reappear, what could I do?

  I supposed that I should try to find him – I who was pledged myself to disappear before the next sun had set…

  Perhaps because I was weary, the hopelessness of our venture stood out very stark and grim. There was no health in it, but only vanity and peril and vexation of heart. The Grand Duchess’ home was gone, George Hanbury was missing, and my darling and I had together been shown a happiness, which had for me killed all other, which could never be ours.

  Bell came to say that he had served me some supper, but I had no appetite and bade him go to his bed.

  Without a word he left me, to return with a glass of champagne.

  To decline an attention so marked would have been churlish, so I thanked him and drank the wine.

  “‘Double, double toil and trouble’,” said I, and set the glass down on the tray.

  “I think you should eat, sir,” said Bell. “Her ladyship—”

  “What of her ladyship?” said I.

  “Her ladyship hoped, sir,” said Bell, “that you would make a good meal.”

  “I will try,” I said abruptly. And then, “When was this?”

  At the top of the pass, sir, while you were gone on ahead. Her ladyship spoke of your strength, sir, and said that nothing could withstand it, except yourself.”

  Now Bell was a hotbed of loyalty and brought up this unjust saying as though it were gospel truth; and because, I suppose, there is no cordial so rare as the news that another ranks you more high than you know you deserve, I confess with some shame that my spirits began to rise and I saw the manifest wisdom of taking both food and rest.

  I therefore went to table and sat down to my lonely meal, while Bell, who refused to leave me, served me better than any butler, and presently, finding that my hand was injured, insisted on greasing my fingers and binding them up.

  “And now,” said I, rising at last, “you are to have your supper and go to bed. Tomorrow at eight we must try the nearest garage and see if Mr Hanbury has hired a car.”

  “Let me save you the trouble,” said George, coming into the room.

  With his words the door of the flat was shut, and, before I could answer, he turned and called to Rowley to put out a change of clothes.

  Now Hanbury’s news was of so much interest and value that I cannot do better than set down his tale as he told it, using, so far as I can recall them, his very words.

  “Since you’ve been gone we’ve had an exciting time. Some people might call it sensational – but you shall judge for yourself.

  “At eight o’clock yesterday morning a certain agitation suggested trouble of some sort in or about Grieg’s flat. Presently Rowley comes in and tells me the truth. Grieg’s flat had been entered the night before by some person or persons unknown. No, it wasn’t me – I only wish it had been. I’ve always said that Grieg had a written warrant for all he did and that, if we could only produce it, Johann would be tied and bound. Johann, no doubt, thought the same, and when he learned that we had the flat beneath Grieg’s, he felt it was time to get that document back. Hence the housebreaking. Grieg’s table-drawers were forced and his papers were all over the place. Grieg is not fit to be told, and nobody else has any idea what’s missing, so there we are. What breaks my heart is that I heard the thief. At least I assume it was he, and, for what it was worth, I told Rowley to make this known. I’d risen to drink some water – I think that wine held the secret of everlasting thirst – at three o’clock, and I heard a step on the gravel outside the house. With true conceit, I imagined that whoever it was had been set to watch me; but though the windows were open the shutters were shut, so I wished him luck of his duty and went back to bed. If only I’d known…

  “Well, that was a bad beginning.

  “For thinking of what I had missed, I couldn’t sit still. I spent the morning afoot, and after luncheon I ranged the streets of Vigil till Rowley was ready to drop. Finally I entered a café – at least I sat down outside – and gave him some beer. It was in the Könige Strasse, and, as it was only just five, there was plenty of room. Our seats, being on the pavement, commanded an excellent view of all the traffic and particularly of some workmen who were down on their knees in the roadway by the side of a hole. I tell you those men amazed me. They were fine, lusty fellows and full of cheer, and they took no more notice of the traffic than the sheep takes of the crow that sits on its back. The traffic went round and about them as a stream flows round a boulder that breaks its flow, but, though they had no barriers and none of them kept a look-out, they might have been lounging in the midst of some private park. I’ve never seen such detachment in all my life. Presently I called a waiter and asked what they meant, for so far as I could see they did nothing but roar with laughter and look down the hole. He said at once that they were sewermen and were waiting for one of their number to reappear.

  “Now observe the working of Fate. My mind is directed to sewers – not an aristocratic subject, but a highly practical one. At that very moment Rowley touches my arm. ‘Look, sir,’ says he. I look – to see a man in a car, blocked for a moment by traffic six paces from where we sit. The car was closed, but the man was sitting forward, and I could see his face. It was the face of a man who was worried out of his life – a man sunk deep in trouble, if not despair. More. It was the face of Sully.

  “Well, Sully desperate could only mean one thing. Things were moving at the palace and moving devilish ill. Your prophecy came into my mind. I wondered whether Sully had been turned from the palace doors…

  “In that instant the car moved on and in my mind the connection of thought was made. Sewers…underground …access to the palace like that.

  “Well, we followed the car, which very luckily stopped in a neighbouring street. Sully got out and went into a good-looking house, which I presently found was a very exclusive club, and five minutes later Rowley took him a note. This ran as follows:

  Vital that I should see you. Suggest we should talk in your car – preferably after dark. Please ring up 979 any time after six appointing a time and place at which you can pick me up.

  “For four hours I sat in this flat, sweating and grunting and generally losing weight. Then at last he rang up… Twenty minutes later I was inside his brougham and Rowley was couched in some bushes against my return.

  “‘Is the Prince yet alive?’ said I.

  “‘Yes,’ said Sully. ‘But he very nearly died at a quarter past two.’
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  “‘Have you seen him?’ said I.

  “Sully nodded.

  “‘I saw him at half past three. He is very much changed. He certainly knew me, but he can hardly speak. He has held his last Council. If he lives for a year, he will never do business again.’

  “‘He won’t live for a year,’ said I.

  “‘They give him two or three days.’

  “‘His seizure,’ said I, ‘took place at a quarter past two: yet you never saw him till half past three.’

  “‘That’s right,’ said Sully slowly. ‘I – I was kept in the vestibule. I have reason to think that, if His Royal Highness had died, I should not have been suffered to pass.’

  “‘Exactly,’ said I, and, with that, I unfolded my dream.

  “Nearly all palaces have bolt-holes – secret, underground passages, emerging in a cellar or somewhere without the palace grounds. The idea is that, in case of revolution, the King shall have a way of escape. Now this may well be denied, but it happens to be a hard fact. I know of one such passage running out of a palace you’ve passed a good many times and I know the very house into whose cellar it runs. Very well. The trouble is this. These tunnels are like fire extinguishers. They’re installed as a precaution: fifty years go by without a fire, and when the fire does come, nobody knows how to use them, or even perhaps where they are. For one thing the servants have changed…

  “When I told Sully that there was a secret passage, he gave me the lie direct.

  “‘Nothing doing,’ said I. ‘Of course you don’t know of it. Very likely it isn’t known by the Prince himself. Possibly no one knows. But I’ll lay you any money the passage is there.’

  “‘But if we can’t find it,’ said Sully.

  “‘We must try,’ said I. ‘The most likely man to know is an old, trusty servant whose father was a servant before him, or someone like that.’

  “Sully fingered his chin.

  “‘I can think of no one,’ he said, ‘but the sergeant-footman – Grimm. The Prince’s person is practically in his charge. He has four under-footmen, and those five share the duties of ministering to the Prince. No other servants enter the private apartments of which they have charge. I have known Grimm for thirty-five years, and he certainly succeeded his father, who died about twelve years ago.’

  “‘The very man,’ said I. ‘Can you see him at once?’

  “‘Yes,’ said Sully. ‘I can. But I tell you frankly I think that we shall draw blank. Still, this afternoon has shown me that I am out of my depth, and to anyone who thinks that he can touch bottom I am ready to hand my staff.’

  “‘If,’ said I, ‘there is a passage at all, it runs out of the royal apartments. Consider, then, what such an entrance is worth. Once you are in, your presence–’

  “With a look of unutterable distress, Sully threw up his hands.

  “‘Kneller has failed me,’ he said. ‘He knew that I was detained, but he never interfered. I am not sure of the physicians, the Prince is past speaking, and, except for Grimm, there is no one in the palace that I trust. And all without are sitting upon the fence.’

  “‘Find me the passage,’ said I, and left it there.

  “We drove to where we’d left Rowley, and I got out.

  “I expected that Sully would be gone for an hour and a half, and, when his car reappeared in forty minutes, I was prepared for the worst. I thought that he had again been refused admission and that the Prince was dead.

  “I was quite wrong.

  “He’d been to the royal apartments and seen the Prince. What was more to the point, he’d seen Grimm…

  “There’s a passage leading out of the wardrobe, adjoining the Prince’s room. It runs underneath the gardens, and its exit is in the old fosse which runs down into the river about half a mile from here.

  “Whereabouts in the fosse Grimm didn’t know, and that’s why Rowley and I got so devilish wet. In the end we found it, under a bridge.

  “It’s very cleverly done, and if I hadn’t been looking, I should have gone clean by it ten times out of ten. For one thing, the fosse is hardly a thoroughfare, and for another, who ever looks under a bridge? If you do, what do you see? A niche in the wall. A niche some six feet high by four feet deep, with ferns growing in and around it and good enough for a statue you want to forget. I damned near gave it a miss…

  “Well, the mouth of the passage is in the side of the niche. I’d expected a door of some sort, and, after a dozen paces, I came to an old iron gate. This we managed to force, and less than an hour ago I was talking to Grimm.

  “He’s a stout old fellow is Grimm.

  “Directly Sully learned that there was a passage, he had the wit to tell Grimm why he wanted to know and to bid him stand by to expect me during the night. Grimm sent the footmen to bed and himself lay down in the wardrobe with his ear to the floor. The rest was easy…

  “Two nuns are nursing the Prince, but they’ve neither eyes nor ears, and they never go further than the bathroom where they take it in turns to rest. There are three physicians in attendance, two of whom sleep in the palace and are hand in glove with Johann. Grimm would not trust his footmen out of his sight. One of them – yes: he’s his son. But the other three – no. If Duke Paul appeared in the bedchamber the news would be through the palace in five minutes’ time. As for letting them know of the passage…

  “It follows that there’s only one moment at which the passage can be used – when the Prince is in extremis. At that most important moment the Grand Duchess, Sully and Duke Paul must use it to reach their posts. The sight of them may stiffen Kneller and it ought to shake up Johann.

  “Well, there you are. We now have access to the palace – private, unsuspected access which a child of four could employ. The fosse is full of bushes, and a path like a sheep-run makes its way down to the niche. There a little step-ladder might help. But that, of course, is a detail. Access we have. Sully will see the Grand Duchess tomorrow as soon as he can. Then she will ring up for the Rolls, and Rowley, when he gets there, will tell her our news. He’ll tell her how to get to the passage, and admission to the wardrobe can be fixed between Sully and Grimm. It’s a step in the right direction: but it isn’t command of the palace by a very long chalk. You can fill the wardrobe with soldiers, but, if they won’t do as you tell them, they’re better away. By using the passage Sully will draw a good trump: but, unless such a loss makes Johann throw in his hand – and unless he’s a very cheap guy, I don’t quite see why it should – well, the sweep’s got two or three others to carry him home.

  “And now let’s hear your news.” He pointed to my bandaged hand. “That suggests that it’s meaty, and I’m sure the wallah that did it is sorry he spoke.”

  Beside so brilliant an achievement the tale of my adventures seemed very small beer, and the War Office order which we had been shown at Elsa furnished the only light which I was able to shed upon the state of affairs.

  By the time my tale was over, George had eaten and drunk, and, since we were both very tired, it seemed best to postpone all discussion and go to our beds, “for, as I have told you,” said I, “after tonight we shan’t sleep in them any more, and God only knows when and where we shall lay our heads.”

  Reviewing the position next morning, no one could have pretended that the outlook was good. Thanks to George Hanbury’s exploit, our cause was no longer hopeless: but that was all.

  The Prince was undoubtedly dying. It was not to be so much as imagined that he could survive till August when Johann’s command would be up. At the crucial moment, therefore, Johann would be in the palace and commanding the Body Guard.

  The Grand Duchess, Sully and Grimm stood entirely alone. The Countess Dresden could do nothing, and her husband was on a mission to some other court. Even Kneller, the general whom Sully had specially summoned to strengthen his arm, had proved a broken reed.

  On the other hand Johann was powerful within and without. He had command of the palace, and the War Office plainly
was ready to do as he said. The Household and Privy Council were under his mailed hand. The Lord President might protest, but four hundred men-at-arms were ever a formidable answer to any argument.

  Parliament there was none. Riechtenburg was governed by the Prince in Council – and the Councillors were sitting on the fence. That they had been suborned was unlikely: rather they had thought for themselves and, observing the quarter from which the wind was setting, were proposing to take their orders from whoever was in a position to have his orders obeyed. I had no doubt whatever that Church and State would follow the Councillors’ lead.

  Johann had the whip-hand.

  When the moment came he would have to outface the Grand Duchess and Sully, too. I did not envy him his task. But, though his ears might burn, he would stand his ground. And when they had said their say, Johann would turn to Duke Paul – and show him the whip…

  Now this was surmise, but I had a presentiment of a struggle that would be still-born, because the heir apparent would himself deliver his birthright into his enemy’s hand.

  The Grand Duchess telephoned herself at a quarter to ten o’clock.

  “Good morning,” she said. “I am told I am to order the car.”

  “I will send it at once,” said I.

  “I should like to see you,” she said, “and, since you are going away, I cannot see any harm in the two of you coming to lunch.”

  “We shall be very happy,” said I.

  “At one o’clock, then. Goodbye.”

  The Grand Duchess’ words brought us face to face with a problem which we had not yet tried to solve.

  That night we must go into hiding. We must give our butler notice and quit our flat: we must go to the station, register most of our baggage and take the Salzburg train. To leave the train surreptitiously should not be hard, but we did not know the country and we had but a rough idea of the cover which it would afford. Unless we were close to Vigil, we might as well be in Wiltshire, for all the help we could give. The servants must be able to find us, yet how could we tell them where to seek us when we knew no more than they did where we should be? Over all, the pressure of time hung like a thundercloud. The Prince was moribund. Unless, as I had promised, a message could always reach us at the outside within the hour, we could be of no more service than the seventy-seven statues about the cathedral doors.