The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett (good story books to read txt) 📕

Aribert whispered to Theodore Racksole; “that is the Berlin lady.”

“The deuce she is! Has she seen you? Will she know you?”

“She would probably know me, but she hasn’t looked up yet.”

“Keep behind her, then. I propose to find her a little occupation.” By dint of a carefully-exercised diplomacy, Racksole manoeuvred himself into a seat opposite to the lady in the red hat. The fame of his success at the other table had followed him, and people regarded him as a serious and formidable player. In the first turn the lady put a thousand francs on double zero; Racksole put a hundred on number nineteen and a thousand on the odd numbers.

Nineteen won. Racksole received four thousand four hundred francs. Nine times in succession Racksole backed number nineteen and the odd numbers; nine times the lady backed double zero. Nine times Racksole won and the lady lost. The other players, perceiving that the affair had resolved itself into a duel, stood back for the most part and watched those two. Prince Aribert never stirred from his position behind the great red hat. The game continued. Racksole lost trifles from time to time, but ninety-nine hundredths of the luck was with him. As an English spectator at the table remarked, “he couldn’t do wrong.” When midnight struck the lady in the red hat was reduced to a thousand francs. Then she fell into a winning vein for half an hour, but at one o’clock her resources were exhausted. Of the hundred and sixty thousand francs which she was reputed to have had early in the evening, Racksole held about ninety thousand, and the bank had the rest.

It was a calamity for the Juno of the red hat. She jumped up, stamped her foot, and hurried from the room. At a discreet distance Racksole and the Prince pursued her.

“It might be well to ascertain her movements,” said Racksole.

Outside, in the glare of the great arc lights, and within sound of the surf which beats always at the very foot of the Kursaal, the Juno of the red hat summoned a fiacre and drove rapidly away. Racksole and the Prince took an open carriage and started in pursuit. They had not, however, travelled more than half a mile when Prince Aribert stopped the carriage, and, bidding Racksole get out, paid the driver and dismissed him.

“I feel sure I know where she is going,” he explained, “and it will be better for us to follow on foot.”

“You mean she is making for the scene of last night’s affair?” said Racksole.

“Exactly. We shall⁠—what you call, kill two birds with one stone.”

Prince Aribert’s guess was correct. The lady’s carriage stopped in front of the house where Nella Racksole and Miss Spencer had had their interview on the previous evening, and the lady vanished into the building just as the two men appeared at the end of the street. Instead of proceeding along that street, the Prince led Racksole to the lane which gave on to the backs of the houses, and he counted the houses as they went up the lane. In a few minutes they had burglariously climbed over a wall, and crept, with infinite caution, up a long, narrow piece of ground⁠—half garden, half paved yard, till they crouched under a window⁠—a window which was shielded by curtains, but which had been left open a little.

“Listen,” said the Prince in his lightest whisper, “they are talking.”

“Who?”

“The Berlin lady and Miss Spencer. I’m sure it’s Miss Spencer’s voice.”

Racksole boldly pushed the French window a little wider open, and put his ear to the aperture, through which came a beam of yellow light.

“Take my place,” he whispered to the Prince, “they’re talking German. You’ll understand better.”

Silently they exchanged places under the window, and the Prince listened intently.

“Then you refuse?” Miss Spencer’s visitor was saying.

There was no answer from Miss Spencer.

“Not even a thousand francs? I tell you I’ve lost the whole twenty-five thousand.”

Again no answer.

“Then I’ll tell the whole story,” the lady went on, in an angry rush of words. “I did what I promised to do. I enticed him here, and you’ve got him safe in your vile cellar, poor little man, and you won’t give me a paltry thousand francs.”

“You have already had your price.” The words were Miss Spencer’s. They fell cold and calm on the night air.

“I want another thousand.”

“I haven’t it.”

“Then we’ll see.”

Prince Aribert heard a rustle of flying skirts; then another movement⁠—a door banged, and the beam of light through the aperture of the window suddenly disappeared. He pushed the window wide open. The room was in darkness, and apparently empty.

“Now for that lantern of yours,” he said eagerly to Theodore Racksole, after he had translated to him the conversation of the two women, Racksole produced the dark lantern from the capacious pocket of his dust coat, and lighted it. The ray flashed about the ground.

“What is it?” exclaimed Prince Aribert with a swift cry, pointing to the ground. The lantern threw its light on a perpendicular grating at their feet, through which could be discerned a cellar. They both knelt down, and peered into the subterranean chamber. On a broken chair a young man sat listlessly with closed eyes, his head leaning heavily forward on his chest.

In the feeble light of the lantern he had the livid and ghastly appearance of a corpse.

“Who can it be?” said Racksole.

“It is Eugen,” was the Prince’s low answer.

XVII The Release of Prince Eugen

“Eugen,” Prince Aribert called softly. At the sound of his own name the young man in the cellar feebly raised his head and stared up at the grating which separated him from his two rescuers. But his features showed no recognition. He gazed in an aimless, vague, silly manner for a few seconds, his eyes blinking under the glare of the lantern, and then his head slowly drooped again on to his chest. He was dressed in a dark tweed travelling suit, and Racksole observed