The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim (books to read now txt) 📕

until after the war has started. In the parlance of this country of idioms, that will rather upset the apple cart, will it not?”

“Has the Princess a suite of rooms here?” Seaman enquired.

“Over in the west wing. Good idea! You go and see what you can do with her. She will not think of going to bed at this time of night.”

Seaman nodded.

“Leave it to me,” he directed. “You go out and play the host.”

Dominey played the host first and then the husband. Rosamund welcomed him with a little cry of pleasure.

“I have been enjoying myself so much, Everard!” she exclaimed. “Everybody has been so kind, and Mr. Mangan has taught me a new Patience.”

“And now, I think,” Doctor Harrison intervened a little gruffly, “it’s time to knock off for the evening.”

She turned very sweetly to Everard.

“Will you take me upstairs?” she begged. “I have been hoping so much that you would come before Doctor Harrison sent me off.”

“I should have been very disappointed if I had been too late,” Dominey assured her. “Now say good night to everybody.”

“Why, you talk to me as though I were a child,” she laughed. “Well, goodbye, everybody, then. You see, my stern husband is taking me off. When are you coming to see me, Doctor Harrison?”

“Nothing to see you for,” was the gruff reply. “You are as well as any woman here.”

“Just a little unsympathetic, isn’t he?” she complained to Dominey. “Please take me through the hall, so that I can say goodbye to everyone else. Is the Princess Eiderstrom there?”

“I am afraid that she has gone to bed,” Dominey answered, as they passed out of the room. “She said something about a headache.”

“She is very beautiful,” Rosamund said wistfully. “I wish she looked as though she liked me a little more. Is she very fond of you, Everard?”

“I think that I am rather in her bad books just at present,” Dominey confessed.

“I wonder! I am very observant, and I have seen her looking at you sometimes⁠—Of course,” Rosamund went on, “as I am not really your wife and you are not really my husband, it is very stupid of me to feel jealous, isn’t it, Everard?”

“Not a bit,” he answered. “If I am not your husband, I will not be anybody else’s.”

“I love you to say that,” she admitted, with a little sigh, “but it seems wrong somewhere. Look how cross the Duchess looks! Someone must have played the wrong card.”

Rosamund’s farewells were not easily made; Terniloff especially seemed reluctant to let her go. She excused herself gracefully, however, promising to sit up a little later the next evening. Dominey led the way upstairs, curiously gratified at her lingering progress. He took her to the door of her room and looked in. The nurse was sitting in an easy-chair, reading, and the maid was sewing in the background.

“Well, you look very comfortable here,” he declared cheerfully. “Pray do not move, nurse.”

Rosamund held his hands, as though reluctant to let him go. Then she drew his face down and kissed him.

“Yes,” she said a little plaintively, “it’s very comfortable.⁠—Everard?”

“Yes, dear?”

She drew his head down and whispered in his ear.

“May I come in and say good night for two minutes?”

He smiled⁠—a wonderfully kind smile⁠—but shook his head.

“Not tonight, dear,” he replied. “The Prince loves to sit up late, and I shall be downstairs with him. Besides, that bully of a doctor of yours insists upon ten hours’ sleep.”

She sighed like a disappointed child.

“Very well.” She paused for a moment to listen. “Wasn’t that a car?” she asked.

“Some of our guests going early, I dare say,” he replied, as he turned away.

XXIII

Seaman did not at once start on his mission to the Princess. He made his way instead to the servants’ quarters and knocked at the door of the butler’s sitting-room. There was no reply. He tried the handle in vain. The door was locked. A tall, grave-faced man in sombre black came out from an adjoining apartment.

“You are looking for the person who arrived this evening from abroad, sir?” he enquired.

“I am,” Seaman replied. “Has he locked himself in?”

“He has left the Hall, sir!”

“Left!” Seaman repeated. “Do you mean gone away for good?”

“Apparently, sir. I do not understand his language myself, but I believe he considered his reception here, for some reason or other, unfavourable. He took advantage of the car which went down to the station for the evening papers and caught the last train.”

Seaman was silent for a moment. The news was a shock to him.

“What is your position here?” he asked his informant.

“My name is Reynolds, sir,” was the respectful reply. “I am Mr. Pelham’s servant.”

“Can you tell me why, if this man has left the door here is locked?”

“Mr. Parkins locked it before he went out, sir. He accompanied⁠—Mr. Miller, I think his name was⁠—to the station.”

Seaman had the air of a man not wholly satisfied.

“Is it usual to lock up a sitting-room in this fashion?” he asked.

“Mr. Parkins always does it, sir. The cabinets of cigars are kept there, also the wine-cellar key and the key of the plate chest. None of the other servants use the room except at Mr. Parkins’ invitation.”

“I understand,” Seaman said, as he turned away. “Much obliged for your information, Reynolds. I will speak to Mr. Parkins later.”

“I will let him know that you desire to see him, sir.”

“Good night, Reynolds!”

“Good night, sir!”

Seaman passed back again to the crowded hall and billiard-room, exchanged a few remarks here and there, and made his way up the southern flight of stairs toward the west wing. Stephanie consented without hesitation to receive him. She was seated in front of the fire, reading a novel, in a boudoir opening out of her bedroom.

“Princess,” Seaman declared, with a low bow, “we are in despair at your desertion.”

She put down her book.

“I have been insulted in this house,” she said. “Tomorrow I leave it.”

Seaman shook his head reproachfully.

“Your Highness,” he continued, “believe me, I do not wish to presume upon my