Part 3

Racksole, at that instant, remembered with a special vividness what Felix Babylon had said to him at their first interview. He wished he had brought his revolver. He didn’t know why he should feel the desirability of a revolver in a London hotel of the most unimpeachable fair fame, but he did feel the desirability of such an instrument of attack and defence. He privately decided that if Jules went past his recess he would take him by the throat and in that attitude put a few plain questions to this highly dubious waiter. But Jules had stopped. The millionaire made another cautious observation. Jules, with infinite gentleness, was turning the handle of the door to which the white ribbon was attached. The door slowly yielded and Jules disappeared within the room. After a brief interval, the night-prowling Jules reappeared, closed the door as softly as he had opened it, removed the ribbon, returned upon his steps, and vanished down the transverse corridor.

‘This is quaint,’ said Racksole; ‘quaint to a degree!’

It occurred to him to look at the number of the room, and he stole towards it.

‘Well, I’m d—d!’ he murmured wonderingly.

The number was 111, his daughter’s room! He tried to open it, but the door was locked. Rushing to his own room, No. 107, he seized one of a pair of revolvers (the kind that are made for millionaires) and followed after Jules down the transverse corridor. At the end of this corridor was a window; the window was open; and Jules was innocently gazing out of the window. Ten silent strides, and Theodore Racksole was upon him.

‘One word, my friend,’ the millionaire began, carelessly waving the revolver in the air. Jules was indubitably startled, but by an admirable exercise of self-control he recovered possession of his faculties in a second.

‘Sir?’ said Jules.

‘I just want to be informed, what the deuce you were doing in No. 111 a moment ago.’

‘I had been requested to go there,’ was the calm response.

‘You are a liar, and not a very clever one. That is my daughter’s room. Now—out with it, before I decide whether to shoot you or throw you into the street.’

‘Excuse me, sir, No. 111 is occupied by a gentleman.’

‘I advise you that it is a serious error of judgement to contradict me, my friend. Don’t do it again. We will go to the room together, and you shall prove that the occupant is a gentleman, and not my daughter.’

‘Impossible, sir,’ said Jules.

‘Scarcely that,’ said Racksole, and he took Jules by the sleeve. The millionaire knew for a certainty that Nella occupied No. 111, for he had examined the room with her, and himself seen that her trunks and her maid and herself had arrived there in safety. ‘Now open the door,’ whispered Racksole, when they reached No.111.

‘I must knock.’

‘That is just what you mustn’t do. Open it. No doubt you have your pass- key.’

Confronted by the revolver, Jules readily obeyed, yet with a deprecatory gesture, as though he would not be responsible for this outrage against the decorum of hotel life. Racksole entered. The room was brilliantly lighted.

‘A visitor, who insists on seeing you, sir,’ said Jules, and fled.

Mr Reginald Dimmock, still in evening dress, and smoking a cigarette, rose hurriedly from a table.

‘Hello, my dear Mr Racksole, this is an unexpected—ah—pleasure.’

‘Where is my daughter? This is her room.’

‘Did I catch what you said, Mr Racksole?’

‘I venture to remark that this is Miss Racksole’s room.’

‘My good sir,’ answered Dimmock, ‘you must be mad to dream of such a thing.

Only my respect for your daughter prevents me from expelling you forcibly, for such an extraordinary suggestion.’

A small spot half-way down the bridge of the millionaire’s nose turned suddenly white.

‘With your permission,’ he said in a low calm voice, ‘I will examine the dressing-room and the bath-room.’

‘Just listen to me a moment,’ Dimmock urged, in a milder tone.

‘I’ll listen to you afterwards, my young friend,’ said Racksole, and he proceeded to search the bath-room, and the dressing-room, without any result whatever. ‘Lest my attitude might be open to misconstruction, Mr Dimmock, I may as well tell you that I have the most perfect confidence in my daughter, who is as well able to take care of herself as any woman I ever met, but since you entered it there have been one or two rather mysterious occurrences in this hotel. That is all.’ Feeling a draught of air on his shoulder, Racksole turned to the window. ‘For instance,’ he added, ‘I perceive that this window is broken, badly broken, and from the outside.

Now, how could that have occurred?’

‘If you will kindly hear reason, Mr Racksole,’ said Dimmock in his best diplomatic manner, ‘I will endeavour to explain things to you. I regarded your first question to me when you entered my room as being offensively put, but I now see that you had some justification.’ He smiled politely. ‘I was passing along this corridor about eleven o’clock, when I found Miss Racksole in a difficulty with the hotel servants. Miss Racksole was retiring to rest in this room when a large stone, which must have been thrown from the Embankment, broke the window, as you see. Apart from the discomfort of the broken window, she did not care to remain in the room. She argued that where one stone had come another might follow. She therefore insisted on her room being changed. The servants said that there was no other room available with a dressing-room and bath-room attached, and your daughter made a point of these matters. I at once offered to exchange apartments with her. She did me the honour to accept my offer. Our respective belongings were moved—and that is all. Miss Racksole is at this moment, I trust, asleep in No. 124.’

Theodore Racksole looked at the young man for a few seconds in silence.

There was a faint knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ said Racksole loudly.

Someone pushed open the door, but remained standing on the mat. It was Nella’s maid, in a dressing-gown.

‘Miss Racksole’s compliments, and a thousand excuses, but a book of hers was left on the mantelshelf in this room. She cannot sleep, and wishes to read.’

‘Mr Dimmock, I tender my apologies—my formal apologies,’ said Racksole, when the girl had gone away with the book. ‘Good night.’

‘Pray don’t mention it,’ said Dimmock suavely—and bowed him out.

Chapter Four ENTRANCE OF THE PRINCE

NEVERTHELESS, sundry small things weighed on Racksole’s mind. First there was Jules’ wink. Then there was the ribbon on the door-handle and Jules’ visit to No. 111, and the broken window—broken from the outside. Racksole did not forget that the time was 3 a.m. He slept but little that night, but he was glad that he had bought the Grand Babylon Hôtel. It was an acquisition which seemed to promise fun and diversion.

The next morning he came across Mr Babylon early. ‘I have emptied my private room of all personal papers,’ said Babylon, ‘and it is now at your disposal.

I purpose, if agreeable to yourself, to stay on in the hotel as a guest for the present. We have much to settle with regard to the completion of the purchase, and also there are things which you might want to ask me. Also, to tell the truth, I am not anxious to leave the old place with too much suddenness. It will be a wrench to me.’

‘I shall be delighted if you will stay,’ said the millionaire, ‘but it must be as my guest, not as the guest of the hotel.’

‘You are very kind.’

‘As for wishing to consult you, no doubt I shall have need to do so, but I must say that the show seems to run itself.’

‘Ah!’ said Babylon thoughtfully. ‘I have heard of hotels that run themselves. If they do, you may be sure that they obey the laws of gravity and run downwards. You will have your hands full. For example, have you yet heard about Miss Spencer?’

‘No,’ said Racksole. ‘What of her?’

‘She has mysteriously vanished during the night, and nobody appears to be able to throw any light on the affair. Her room is empty, her boxes gone.

You will want someone to take her place, and that someone will not be very easy to get.’

‘H’m!’ Racksole said, after a pause. ‘Hers is not the only post that falls vacant to-day.’

A little later, the millionaire installed himself in the late owner’s private room and rang the bell.

‘I want Jules,’ he said to the page.

While waiting for Jules, Racksole considered the question of Miss Spencer’s disappearance.

‘Good morning, Jules,’ was his cheerful greeting, when the imperturbable waiter arrived.

‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Take a chair.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘We have met before this morning, Jules.’

‘Yes, sir, at 3 a.m.’

‘Rather strange about Miss Spencer’s departure, is it not?’ suggested Racksole.

‘It is remarkable, sir.’

‘You are aware, of course, that Mr Babylon has transferred all his interests in this hotel to me?’

‘I have been informed to that effect, sir.’

‘I suppose you know everything that goes on in the hotel, Jules?’

‘As the head waiter, sir, it is my business to keep a general eye on things.’

‘You speak very good English for a foreigner, Jules.’

‘For a foreigner, sir! I am an Englishman, a Hertfordshire man born and bred. Perhaps my name has misled you, sir. I am only called Jules because the head waiter of any really high-class hotel must have either a French or an Italian name.’

‘I see,’ said Racksole. ‘I think you must be rather a clever person, Jules.’

‘That is not for me to say, sir.’

‘How long has the hotel enjoyed the advantage of your services?’

‘A little over twenty years.’

‘That is a long time to be in one place. Don’t you think it’s time you got out of the rut? You are still young, and might make a reputation for yourself in another and wider sphere.’

Racksole looked at the man steadily, and his glance was steadily returned.

‘You aren’t satisfied with me, sir?’

‘To be frank, Jules, I think—I think you—er—wink too much. And I think that it is regrettable when a head waiter falls into a habit of taking white ribbons from the handles of bedroom doors at three in the morning.’

Jules started slightly.

‘I see how it is, sir. You wish me to go, and one pretext, if I may use the term, is as good as another. Very well, I can’t say that I’m surprised. It sometimes happens that there is incompatibility of temper between a hotel proprietor and his head waiter, and then, unless one of them goes, the hotel is likely to suffer. I will go, Mr Racksole. In fact, I had already thought of giving notice.’

The millionaire smiled appreciatively. ‘What wages do you require in lieu of notice? It is my intention that you leave the hotel within an hour.’

‘I require no wages in lieu of notice, sir. I would scorn to accept anything. And I will leave the hotel in fifteen minutes.’

‘Good-day, then. You have my good wishes and my admiration, so long as you keep out of my hotel.’

Racksole got up. ‘Good-day, sir. And thank you.’

‘By the way, Jules, it will be useless for you to apply to any other first-rate European hotel for a post, because I shall take measures which will ensure the rejection of any such application.’

‘Without discussing the question whether or not there aren’t at least half a dozen hotels in London alone that would jump for joy at the chance of getting me,’ answered Jules, ‘I may tell you, sir, that I shall retire from my profession.’

‘Really! You will turn your brains to a different channel.’

‘No, sir. I shall take rooms in Albemarle Street or Jermyn Street, and just be content to be a man-about-town. I have saved some twenty thousand pounds—a mere trifle, but sufficient for my needs, and I shall now proceed to enjoy it. Pardon me for troubling you with my personal affairs. And good-day again.’

That afternoon Racksole went with Felix Babylon first to a firm of solicitors in the City, and then to a stockbroker, in order to carry out the practical details of the purchase of the hotel.

‘I mean to settle in England,’ said Racksole, as they were coming back. ‘It is the only country—’ and he stopped.

‘The only country?’

‘The only country where you can invest money and spend money with a feeling of security. In the United States there is nothing worth spending money on, nothing to buy. In France or Italy, there is no real security.’

‘But surely you are a true American?’ questioned Babylon.

‘I am a true American,’ said Racksole, ‘but my father, who began by being a bedmaker at an Oxford college, and ultimately made ten million dollars out of iron in Pittsburg—my father took the wise precaution of having me educated in England. I had my three years at Oxford, like any son of the upper middle class! It did me good. It has been worth more to me than many successful speculations. It taught me that the English language is different from, and better than, the American language, and that there is something—I haven’t yet found out exactly what—in English life that Americans will never get. Why,’ he added, ‘in the United States we still bribe our judges and our newspapers. And we talk of the eighteenth century as though it was the beginning of the world. Yes, I shall transfer my securities to London. I shall build a house in Park Lane, and I shall buy some immemorial country seat with a history as long as the A. T. and S. railroad, and I shall calmly and gradually settle down. D’you know—I am rather a good-natured man for a millionaire, and of a social disposition, and yet I haven’t six real friends in the whole of New York City. Think of that!’

‘And I,’ said Babylon, ‘have no friends except the friends of my boyhood in Lausanne. I have spent thirty years in England, and gained nothing but a perfect knowledge of the English language and as much gold coin as would fill a rather large box.’

These two plutocrats breathed a simultaneous sigh.

‘Talking of gold coin,’ said Racksole, ‘how much money should you think Jules has contrived to amass while he has been with you?’

‘Oh!’ Babylon smiled. ‘I should not like to guess. He has had unique opportunities—opportunities.’

‘Should you consider twenty thousand an extraordinary sum under the circumstances?’

‘Not at all. Has he been confiding in you?’

‘Somewhat. I have dismissed him.’

‘You have dismissed him?’

‘Why not?’

‘There is no reason why not. But I have felt inclined to dismiss him for the past ten years, and never found courage to do it.’

‘It was a perfectly simple proceeding, I assure you. Before I had done with him, I rather liked the fellow.’

‘Miss Spencer and Jules—both gone in one day!’ mused Felix Babylon.

‘And no one to take their places,’ said Racksole. ‘And yet the hotel continues its way!’

But when Racksole reached the Grand Babylon he found that Miss Spencer’s chair in the bureau was occupied by a stately and imperious girl, dressed becomingly in black.

‘Heavens, Nella!’ he cried, going to the bureau. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I am taking Mis Spencer’s place. I want to help you with your hotel, Dad. I fancy I shall make an excellent hotel clerk. I have arranged with a Miss Selina Smith, one of the typists in the office, to put me up to all the tips and tricks, and I shall do very well.’

‘But look here, Helen Racksole. We shall have the whole of London talking about this thing—the greatest of all American heiresses a hotel clerk! And I came here for quiet and rest!’

‘I suppose it was for the sake of quiet and rest that you bought the hotel, Papa?’

‘You would insist on the steak,’ he retorted. ‘Get out of this, on the instant.’

‘Here I am, here to stay,’ said Nella, and deliberately laughed at her parent.

Just then the face of a fair-haired man of about thirty years appeared at the bureau window. He was very well-dressed, very aristocratic in his pose, and he seemed rather angry.

He looked fixedly at Nella and started back.

‘Ach!’ he exclaimed. ‘You!’

‘Yes, your Highness, it is indeed I. Father, this is his Serene Highness Prince Aribert of Posen—one of our most esteemed customers.’

‘You know my name, Fräulein?’ the new-comer murmured in German.

‘Certainly, Prince,’ Nella replied sweetly. ‘You were plain Count Steenbock last spring in Paris—doubtless travelling incognito—’

‘Silence,’ he entreated, with a wave of the hand, and his forehead went as white as paper.

Chapter Five WHAT OCCURRED TO REGINALD DIMMOCK

IN another moment they were all three talking quite nicely, and with at any rate an appearance of being natural. Prince Aribert became suave, even deferential to Nella, and more friendly towards Nella’s father than their respective positions demanded. The latter amused himself by studying this sprig of royalty, the first with whom he had ever come into contact. He decided that the young fellow was personable enough, ‘had no frills on him,’ and would make an exceptionally good commercial traveller for a first-class firm. Such was Theodore Racksole’s preliminary estimate of the man who might one day be the reigning Grand Duke of Posen.

It occurred to Nella, and she smiled at the idea, that the bureau of the hotel was scarcely the correct place in which to receive this august young man. There he stood, with his head half-way through the bureau window, negligently leaning against the woodwork, just as though he were a stockbroker or the manager of a New York burlesque company.

‘Is your Highness travelling quite alone?’ she asked.

‘By a series of accidents I am,’ he said. ‘My equerry was to have met me at Charing Cross, but he failed to do so—I cannot imagine why.’

‘Mr Dimmock?’ questioned Racksole.

‘Yes, Dimmock. I do not remember that he ever missed an appointment before.

You know him? He has been here?’

‘He dined with us last night,’ said Racksole—‘on Nella’s invitation,’ he added maliciously; ‘but to-day we have seen nothing of him. I know, however, that he has engaged the State apartments, and also a suite adjoining the State apartments—No. 55. That is so, isn’t it, Nella?’

‘Yes, Papa,’ she said, having first demurely examined a ledger. ‘Your Highness would doubtless like to be conducted to your room—apartments I mean.’ Then Nella laughed deliberately at the Prince, and said, ‘I don’t know who is the proper person to conduct you, and that’s a fact. The truth is that Papa and I are rather raw yet in the hotel line. You see, we only bought the place last night.’

‘You have bought the hotel!’ exclaimed the Prince.

‘That’s so,’ said Racksole.

‘And Felix Babylon has gone?’

‘He is going, if he has not already gone.’

‘Ah! I see,’ said the Prince; ‘this is one of your American “strokes”. You have bought to sell again, is that not it? You are on your holidays, but you cannot resist making a few thousands by way of relaxation. I have heard of such things.’

‘We sha’n’t sell again, Prince, until we are tired of our bargain. Sometimes we tire very quickly, and sometimes we don’t. It depends—eh? What?’

Racksole broke off suddenly to attend to a servant in livery who had quietly entered the bureau and was making urgent mysterious signs to him.

‘If you please, sir,’ the man by frantic gestures implored Mr Theodore Racksole to come out.

‘Pray don’t let me detain you, Mr Racksole,’ said the Prince, and therefore the proprietor of the Grand Babylon departed after the servant, with a queer, curt little bow to Prince Aribert.

‘Mayn’t I come inside?’ said the Prince to Nella immediately the millionaire had gone.

‘Impossible, Prince,’ Nella laughed. ‘The rule against visitors entering this bureau is frightfully strict.’

‘How do you know the rule is so strict if you only came into possession last night?’

‘I know because I made the rule myself this morning, your Highness.’

‘But seriously, Miss Racksole, I want to talk to you.’

‘Do you want to talk to me as Prince Aribert or as the friend—the acquaintance—whom I knew in Paris last year?’

‘As the friend, dear lady, if I may use the term.’

‘And you are sure that you would not like first to be conducted to your apartments?’

‘Not yet. I will wait till Dimmock comes; he cannot fail to be here soon.’