In silence I bowed, and then ventured to refer to what was uppermost in my mind.
"May I be permitted to speak to your Majesty upon a certain confidential subject?" I begged, standing against the table whereat I had been writing the greater part of that day.
"What subject?" snapped the All-Highest.
"Your Majesty"s negotiations with the Sultan of Turkey. Frau Reitschel has learnt of them, but she is eager to come before you and take oath of entire secrecy."
The Kaiser"s eyes narrowed and glowed in sudden anger.
"A woman"s oath!" he cried. "Bah! Never have I believed in silence imposed upon any woman"s tongue--more especially that of a born enemy! I appreciate your loyalty and ac.u.men, Von Heltzendorff, but I have, fortunately, known this for some little time, and in strictest secrecy have taken certain measures to combat it. Remember that these words have never been uttered to you! Remember that! You are adjutant, and I am Emperor. Understand! I fully appreciate and note your loyal report, but it is not woman"s sphere to enter our diplomacy, except as a secret agent of our Fatherland. Let us say no more."
Ten minutes later, being dismissed, I wandered back through the great, silent, echoing corridors of the ancient castle to my own room. A great human drama, greater than any ever placed upon the stage, was now being enacted. Throwing his loaded dice, the Emperor, with all his craft, cunning, and criminal unscrupulousness behind his mask of Christianity, and aided by his unprincipled son, the Crown-Prince, was actually plotting the downfall of the Turkish Empire and the overthrow of Islam in Europe. Between the All-Highest One and the realization of those dastardly plans for world-power so carefully and cleverly thought out in every detail night after night in the silence of that dull, faded green room upstairs at Potsdam, stood one frail little Parisienne, the vivacious, well-meaning Madame Reitschel!
Next day we left the Schloss Langenberg, but before doing so we heard with regret that our charming little hostess had been suddenly taken ill during the night, and the Kaiser, as a mark of favour, had ordered his doctor, Vollerthun, to remain behind to attend her. That Herr Reitschel was in great distress I saw from his face as he stood taking leave of his Imperial guest on the little platform at Ilmenau.
Back in Berlin, I wondered what was in progress in that far-off Schloss in Thuringia, but a week later the truth became vividly apparent when I read in the _Staats-Anzeiger_ an announcement which disclosed to me the terrible truth.
I held my breath as my eyes followed the printed lines.
Frau Reitschel, the young wife of the famous Anton Reitschel of Constantinople, had, the journal reported, been seized by a sudden and somewhat mysterious illness on the night prior to the Emperor"s departure from the Schloss Langenberg, and though His Majesty had graciously left his own physician behind to attend her, the unfortunate lady had developed insanity to such a hopeless degree that it had been necessary to confine her in the Rosenau private asylum at Coburg.
In a second I realized how the dancing-mistress and the mental specialist from Augsburg had been the tools of the Emperor. That "mysterious illness," developing into madness, was surely not the result of any natural cause, but had been deliberately planned and executed by means of a hypodermic syringe, in order that the woman who had learnt the secret of the Emperor"s double cunning in the Near East should be for ever immured in a madhouse.
Outside the trio responsible for the cruel and dastardly act, I alone knew the truth how, by the Emperor"s drastic action, he had prevented the secret of his chicanery leaking out to the Powers.
Poor Madame Reitschel! She died early in 1913, a raving lunatic. Her devoted husband, having served the Emperor"s purpose, had been recalled to Berlin, where, bereft of the Kaiser"s favour, he predeceased her by about six months, broken-hearted, but in utter ignorance of that foul plot carried out under his very nose and in his own castle.
SECRET NUMBER FIVE
THE GIRL WHO KNEW THE CROWN-PRINCE"S SECRET
Late on the night of November 18th, 1912, I was busily at work in the Crown-Prince"s room--that cosy apartment of which I possessed the key--at the Marble Palace at Potsdam.
I, as His Imperial Highness"s personal-adjutant, had been travelling all day with him from Cologne to Berlin. We had done a tour of military inspections in Westphalia, and, as usual, "Willie"s" conduct, as became the heir-apparent of the psalm-singing All-Highest One, had not been exactly exemplary.
With his slant eyes and sarcastic grin he openly defied the Emperor, and frequently referred to him to his intimates as "a h.o.a.ry old hypocrite"--the truth of which recent events have surely proved.
On the night in question, however, much had happened. The Emperor had, a month before, returned from a visit to England, where he had been engaged by speeches and hand-shakes, public and private, blowing a narcotic dust into the nostrils of your dear but, alas! too confiding nation.
You British were all dazzled--you dear English drank the Imperial sleeping-draught, prepared so cunningly for you and your Cabinet Ministers in what we in Berlin sometimes called "the Downing-Stra.s.se."
You lapped up the cream of German good-fellowship as a cat laps milk, even while agents of our Imperial War Staff had held Staff-rides in various parts of your island. All of you were blind, save those whom your own people denounced as scaremongers when they lifted their voices in warning.
We at Potsdam smiled daily at what seemed to us to be the slow but sure decline of your great nation from its military, naval, and commercial supremacy. The Kaiser had plotted for fourteen years, and now he was being actively aided by his eldest son, that shrewd, active agnostic with a criminal kink.
"Heltzendorff!" exclaimed the Crown-Prince, as he suddenly entered the room where I was busy attending to a pile of papers which had acc.u.mulated during our absence in Westphalia, and which had been sorted into three heaps by my a.s.sistant during our absence. "Do get through all those letters and things. Burn them all if you can. What do they matter?"
"Many of them are matters of grave importance. Here, for instance, is a report from the Chief of Military Intelligence in Washington."
"Oh, old Friesch! Tear it up! He is but an old fossil at best. And yet, Heltzendorff, he is designed to be of considerable use," he added. "His Majesty told me to-night that after his visit to England he has conceived the idea to establish an official movement for the improvement of better relations between Britain and Germany. The dear British are always ready to receive such movements with open arms. At Carlton House Terrace they strongly endorse the Emperor"s ideas, and he tells me that the movement should first arise in commercial and shipping circles. Herr Ballin will generate the idea in his offices in London and the various British ports, while His Majesty has Von Gessler, the ex-Amba.s.sador at Washington, in view as the man to bring forth the suggestion publicly.
Indeed, to-night from the Wilhelmstra.s.se there has been sent a message to his schloss on the Mosel commanding him to consult with His Majesty.
Von Bernstorff took his place at Washington a few months ago."
"But Von Gessler is an inveterate enemy of Britain," I exclaimed in surprise, still seated at my table.
"The world does not know that. The whole scheme is based upon Britain"s ignorance of our intentions. We bring Von Gessler forward as the dear, good, Anglophile friend with his hand outstretched from the Wilhelmstra.s.se. Oh, Heltzendorff!" he laughed. "It is really intensely amusing, is it not?"
I was silent. I knew that the deeply-laid plot against Great Britain was proceeding apace, for had I not seen those many secret reports, and did I not possess inside knowledge of the evil intentions of the Emperor and his son.
"Get through all that--to-night if you can, Heltzendorff," the Crown-Prince urged. "The Crown-Princess leaves for Treseburg, in the Harz, to-morrow, and in the evening we go to Nice."
"To Nice!" I exclaimed, though not at all disinclined to spend a week or so on the Riviera.
"Yes," he said. "I have a friend there. The Riviera is only pleasant before the season, or after. One cannot go with the crowd in January or February. I have already given orders for the saloon to leave at eleven to-morrow night. That will give us ample time."
A friend there! I reflected. I, knowing his partiality to the eternal petticoat, could only suppose that the attraction in Nice was of the feminine gender.
"Then the lady is in Nice!" I remarked, for sometimes I was permitted, on account of my long service with the Emperor, to speak familiarly.
"Lady, no!" he retorted. "It is a man. And I want to get to Nice at the earliest moment. So get through those infernal doc.u.ments. Burn them all.
They are better out of the way," he laughed.
And, taking a cigarette from the golden box--a present to him from "Tino" of Greece--he lit it, and wishing me good night, strode out.
Just before eleven o"clock on the following night we left the Marmor Palace. His Imperial Highness travelled incognito as he always did when visiting France, a.s.suming the name of Count von Grunau. With us was his personal valet, Schuler, the military secretary, Major Lentze, and Eckardt, the Commissioner of Secret Police for His Highness"s personal protection, who travelled with us wherever we went. In addition, there was an under-valet, and Knof, the Crown-Prince"s favourite chauffeur.
When abroad cars were either bought and afterwards re-sold, or else hired, but Knof, who was a celebrated racing motorist and had driven in Prince Henry"s tour of exploration through England, and who had gained many prizes on the various circuits, was always taken as "driver."
After a restless night--for there were many stoppages--I spent next day with the Crown-Prince in long and tiring discussions on military affairs as we travelled due south in the beautifully-fitted Imperial car, replete with its smoking saloon with wicker chairs, its four bathrooms, and other luxuries. I endeavoured to obtain from him some reason why we were proceeding to Nice, but to all my inquiries he was smilingly dumb.
He noticed my eagerness, and I saw that he was amused by it.
Yet somehow, as we travelled towards the Italian frontier--for our road lay through Austria down to Milan, and thence by way of Genoa--he seemed to become unduly thoughtful and anxious.
Only a fortnight before he had had one of those ever-recurring and unseemly quarrels with his long-suffering wife.
"Cilli is a fool!" he had declared openly to me, after she had left the room in anger.
We had been busy arranging a programme of official visits in Eastern Germany, when suddenly the Crown-Princess entered, pale with anger, and disregarding my presence--for I suppose I was regarded as one who knew all the happenings of the palace, and whose discretion could be relied upon--began to demand fiercely an explanation of a certain anonymous letter which she held in her hand.
"Kindly read that!" she said haughtily, "and explain what it means!"
The Crown-Prince grinned idiotically, that cold, sinister expression overspreading his countenance, a look which is such a marked characteristic of his.
Then, almost s.n.a.t.c.hing the letter from his young wife"s fingers, he read it through, and with a sudden movement tore it up and flung it upon the carpet, saying:
"I refuse to discuss any unsigned letter! Really, if we were to notice every letter written by the common sc.u.m we should, indeed, have sufficient to do."