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

The young man in flannels glanced across at Dominey and smiled.

“I say, you two don’t mean to be funny but you are,” he declared. “First of all, there’s Doctor Schmidt accuses Sir Everard here of being an impostor because he assumed his own name; accuses him of murdering a man who had planned in cold blood⁠—you were in that, by the by, Schmidt⁠—to kill him; and then there’s our friend here, the secretary of the society for propagating better relations between the business men of England and Germany, complaining because Sir Everard carried through in Germany, for England, exactly what he believed the Baron Von Ragastein was carrying out here⁠—for Germany. You’re a curious, thickheaded race, you Germans.”

“I demand again,” Schmidt shouted, “to know by what right I am treated as a criminal?”

“Because you are one,” Eddy answered coolly. “You and Von Ragastein together planned the murder of Sir Everard Dominey in East Africa, and I caught you creeping across the floor just now with a knife in your hand. That’ll do for you. Any questions to ask, Seaman?”

“None,” was the surly reply.

“You are well-advised,” the young man remarked coolly. “Within the last two days, your house in Forest Hill and your offices in London Wall have been searched.”

“You have said enough,” Seaman declared. “Fate has gone against me. I thank God that our master has abler servants than I and the strength to crush this island of popinjays and fools!”

“Popinjays seems severe,” Eddy murmured, in a hard tone. “However, to get on with this little matter,” he added, turning to one of his two subordinates. “You will find a military car outside. Take these men over to the guardroom at the Norwich Barracks. I have arranged for an escort to see them to town. Tell the colonel I’ll be over later in the day.”

The Princess rose from the chair into which she had subsided a few moments before. Dominey turned towards her.

“Princess,” he said, “there can be little conversation between us. Yet I shall ask you to remember this. Von Ragastein planned my death in cold blood. I could have slain him as an assassin, without the slightest risk, but I preferred to meet him face to face with the truth upon my lips. It was his life or mine. I fought for my country’s sake, as he did for his.”

The Princess looked at him with glittering eyes.

“I shall hate you to the end of my days,” she declared, “because you have killed the thing I love, but although I am a woman, I know justice. You were chivalrous towards me. You treated Leopold perhaps better than he would have treated you. I pray that I shall never see your face again. Be so good as to suffer me to leave this house at once, and unattended.”

Dominey threw open the windows which led on to the terrace and stood on one side. She passed by without a glance at him and disappeared. Eddy came strolling along the terrace a few moments later.

“Nice old ducks, those two, dear heart,” he confided. “Seaman has just offered Forsyth, my burly ruffian in the blue serge suit, a hundred pounds to shoot him on the pretence that he was escaping.”

“And what about Schmidt?”

“Insisted on his rights as an officer and demanded the front seat and a cigar before the car started! A pretty job, Dominey, and neatly cleaned up.”

Dominey was watching the dust from the two cars which were disappearing down the avenue.

“Tell me, Eddy,” he asked, “there’s one thing I have always been curious about. How did you manage to keep that fellow Wolff when there wasn’t a war on, and he wasn’t breaking the law?”

The young man grinned.

“We had to stretch a point there, old dear,” he admitted. “Plans of a fortress, eh?”

“Do you mean to say that he had plans of a fortress upon him?” Dominey asked.

“Picture postcard of Norwich Castle,” the young man confided, “but keep it dark. Can I have a drink before I get the little car going?”

The turmoil of the day was over, and Dominey, after one silent but passionate outburst of thankfulness at the passing from his life of this unnatural restraint, found all his thoughts absorbed by the struggle which was being fought out in the bedchamber above. The old doctor came down and joined him at dinner time. He met Dominey’s eager glance with a little nod.

“She’s doing all right,” he declared.

“No fever or anything?”

“Bless you, no! She’s as near as possible in perfect health physically. A different woman from what she was this time last year, I can tell you. When she wakes up, she’ll either be herself again, without a single illusion of any sort, or⁠—”

The doctor paused, sipped his wine, emptied his glass and set it down approvingly.

“Or?” Dominey insisted.

“Or that part of her brain will be more or less permanently affected. However, I am hoping for the best. Thank heavens you’re on the spot!”

They finished their dinner almost in silence. Afterwards, they smoked for a few minutes upon the terrace. Then they made their way softly upstairs. The doctor parted with Dominey at the door of the latter’s room.

“I shall remain with her for an hour or so,” he said. “After that I shall leave her entirely to herself. You’ll be here in case there’s a change?”

“I shall be here,” Dominey promised.

The minutes passed into hours, uncounted, unnoticed. Dominey sat in his easy-chair, stirred by a tumultuous wave of passionate emotion. The memory of those earlier days of his return came back to him with all their poignant longings. He felt again the same tearing at the heartstrings, the same strange, unnerving tenderness. The great world’s drama, in which he knew that he, too, would surely continue to play his part, seemed like a thing far off, the concern of another race of men. Every fibre of his being seemed attuned to the magic and the music of one wild hope. Yet when there came