The Puppet Crown - Harlod MacGrath (nice books to read TXT) 📗

/> "This very morning, Herr."

"Thanks."

Then he proceeded up the stairs to the room assigned to him. The smell of garlic which pervaded the air caused him to make a grimace. Once alone in the room, he looked about. There was neither soap nor towel, but there was a card which stated that the same could be purchased at the office. He laughed. A pitcher of water and a bowl stood on a small table, which, by the presence of a mirror (that could not in truth reflect anything but light and darkness), served as a dresser. These he used to good advantage, drying his face and hands on the white counterpane of the bed, and laughing quietly as he did so. Next he lit a pipe, whose capacity for tobacco was rather less than that of a lady's thimble, sat in a chair by the window, smoked quietly, and gazed down on the busy street.

It was yet early in the morning; sellers of vegetables, men and women peasants, with bare legs and wooden shoes, driving shaggy Servian ponies attached to low, cumbersome carts, passed and repassed, to and from the markets. A gendarme, leaning the weight of his shoulder on the guard of a police saber, rested against the corner of a wine shop across the way. Students, wearing squat caps with vizors, sauntered indolently along, twirling canes and ogling all who wore petticoats. Occasionally the bright uniform of a royal cuirassier flashed by; and the Englishman would lean over the sill and gaze after him, nodding his head in approval whenever the cuirassier sat his horse well.

In the meantime the gendarme, who followed him from the station, had entered the hotel, hastily glanced at the freshly written name, and made off toward the palace.

"Well, here we are," mused the Englishman, pressing his thumb into the bowl of his pipe. "The affair promises some excitement. To-morrow will be the sixth; on the twentieth it will be a closed incident, as the diplomats would say. I don't know what brought me here so far ahead of time. I suppose I must look out for a crack on the head from some one I don't know, but who knows me so deuced well that he has hunted me in India and England, first with fine bribes, then with threats." He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the gun cases. "It was a capital idea, otherwise a certain ubiquitous customs official, who lies in wait for the unwary at the frontier, would now be an inmate of a hospital. To have lived thirty-five years, and to have ground out thirteen of them in her Majesty's, is to have acquired a certain disdain for danger, even when it is masked. I am curious to see how far these threats will go. It will take a clever man to trap me. The incognito is a fort. By the way, I wonder how the inspectors at the station came to overlook my traps? Strange, considering what I have gone through."

At this moment the knuckles of a hand beat against the door.

"Come in!" answered the Englishman, wheeling his chair, but making no effort to rise. "Come in!"

The door swung in, and there entered a short, spectacled man in dark gray clothes which fairly bristled with brass buttons. He was the chief inspector of customs. He bowed.

The Englishman, consternation widening his eyes, lowered his pipe.

"Monsieur Hamilton's pardon," the inspector began, speaking in French, "but with your permission I shall inspect your luggage and glance at your passports." He bowed again.

"Now do you know, mon ami," replied the Englishman, "that Monsieur Hamilton will not permit you to gaze even into yonder washbowl?" He rose lazily.

"But, Monsieur," cried the astonished official, to whom non- complaisance in the matter of inspection was unprecedented, "you certainly will not put any obstacle in the path of my duty!"

"Your duty, Monsieur the Spectacles, is to inspect at the station. There your assistants refused to award me their attention. You are trespassing."

"Monsieur forgets," sternly; "it is the law. Is it possible that I shall be forced to call in the gendarmes to assist me? This is extraordinary!"

"I dare say it is, on your part," admitted the Englishman, polishing the bowl of his pipe against the side of his nose. "You had best go at once. If you do not, I shall take you by the nape of your Bleibergian neck and kick you down the stairs. I have every assurance of my privileges. The law here, unless it has changed within the past hour, requires inspection at the frontier, and at the capital; but your jurisdiction does not extend beyond the stations. Bon jour, Monsieur the Spectacles; bon jour!"

"O, Monsieur!"

"Good day!"

"Monsieur, it is my duty; I must!"

"Good day! How will you go, by the stairs or by the window? I- but wait!" an idea coming to him which caused him to reflect on the possible outcome of violence done to a government official, who, perhaps, was discharging his peculiar duty at the orders of superiors. He walked swiftly to the door and slid the bolt, to the terror of the inspector, on whose brow drops of perspiration began to gather. "Now," opening the hat box and taking out a silk hat, "this is a hat, purchased in Paris at Cook's. There is nothing in the lining but felt. Look into the box; nothing. Take out your book and follow me closely," he continued, dividing the traveling bag into halves, and he began to enumerate the contents.

"But, Monsieur!" remonstrated the inspector, who did not enjoy this infringement of his prerogatives; his was the part to overhaul. "This is-"

"Be still and follow me," and the Englishman went on with the inventory. "There!" when he had done, "not a dutiable thing except this German-Scotch whisky, and that is so bad that I give it to you rather than pay duty. What next? My passports? Here they are, absolutely flawless, vised by the authorities in Vienna."

The slips crackled in the fluttering fingers of the inspector. "They are as you say, Monsieur," he said, returning the permits. Then he added timidly, "And the gun cases?"

"The gun cases!" The pipe spilled its coal to the floor. "The gun cases!"

"Yes, Monsieur."

"And why do you wish to look into them?" with agitation.

"Smugglers sometimes fill them with cigars."

"Ah!" The Englishman selected two loaded shells, drew a gun from the case, threw up the breech and rammed in the shells. Then he extended the weapon to within an inch of the terrified inspector's nose. "Now, Monsieur the Spectacles, look in there and tell me what you see."

The fellow sank half-fainting into a chair. "Mon Dieu, Monsieur, would you kill me who have a family?"

"What's a customs inspector, more or less?" asked the terrible islander, laughing. "I advise you not to ask me to let you look into the other gun, out of consideration for your family. It has hair triggers, and my fingers tremble."

"Monsieur, Monsieur, you do wrong to trifle with the law. I shall be obliged to report you. You will be arrested."

"Nothing of the kind," was the retort. "I have only to inform the British minister how remiss you were in your obligations. I should go free, whereas you would be discharged. But what I demand to know is, what the devil is the meaning of this farce."

"I am simply obeying orders," answered the inspector, wiping his forehead. "It is not a farce, as Monsieur will find." Then, as if to excuse this implied threat: "Will Monsieur please point the gun the other way?"

The Englishman unloaded the gun and tossed it on the bed.

"Thanks. In coming here I simply obeyed the orders of the minister of police."

"And what in the world did you expect to find?"

"We are looking-that is, they are looking-O, Monsieur, it is impossible for me to disclose to you my government's purposes."

"What and whom were you expecting?" demanded the Englishman. "You shall not leave this room till you have fully explained this remarkable intrusion."

"We were expecting the Lord and Baronet Fitzgerald."

"The lord!" laughing. "Does the lord visit Bleiberg often, then, that you prepare this sort of a reception? And the Baronet Fitzgerald?"

"They are the same and the one person."

"And who the deuce is he; a spy, a smuggler, a villain, or what?"

"As to that, Monsieur," with a wonder why this man laughed, "I know no more than you. But I do know that for the past month every Englishman has been subjected to this surveillance, and has submitted with more grace than you," with an oblique glance.

"What! Examined his luggage at the hotel?"

"Yes, Monsieur. It is the order of the minister of police. I know not why." The natural color was returning to his cheeks.

"This is a fine country, I must say. At least the king should acquaint his visitors with the true cause of this treatment." In his turn the Englishman resorted to oblique glances.

"The king?" The inspector raised a shoulder and spread his hands. "The king is a paralytic, Monsieur, and has little to say these days."

"A paralytic? I thought he was called `the handsome monarch'?"

"That was years ago, Monsieur. For three years he has been helpless and bedridden. The archbishop is the real king nowadays. But he meddles not with the police."

"This is very sad. I suppose it would be impossible for strangers to see him now."

"An audience?" a sparkle behind the spectacles. "Is your business with the king, Monsieur?"

"My business is mine," shortly. "I am only a tourist, and should have liked to see the king from mere curiosity. However, had you explained all this to me, I should not have caused you so many gray hairs."

"Monsieur did not give me the chance," simply.

"True," the Englishman replied soberly. He began to think that he had been over hasty in asserting his privileges. "But all this has nothing to do with me. My name is John Hamilton. See, it is engraved on the stock of the gun," catching it up and holding it under the spectacled eyes, which still observed it with some trepidation. "That is the name in my passports, in the book down stairs, in the lining of my hat. I am sorry, since you were only obeying orders, that my rough play has caused you alarm." He unbolted the door. "Good morning."

The inspector left the room as swiftly as his short legs could carry him, ignoring the ethics of common politeness. As he stumbled down the stairs he cursed the minister of police for requiring this spy work of him, and not informing him why it was done. Ah, these cursed Anglais from Angleterre! They were all alike, and this one was the worst he had ever encountered. And those ugly black orifices in the gun! Peste! He would resign! Yes, certainly he would resign.

As to the Englishman, he stood in the center of the room and scratched his head. "Hang it, I've made an ass of myself. That blockhead will have the gendarmes about my ears. If they arrest me there will be the devil to pay. The Lord and the Baronet Fitzgerald!" he repeated. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and fell to laughing again. "Confound these picture-book kingdoms! They always take themselves so seriously. Well, if the gendarmes call this afternoon I'll not be at home. No,