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

“A lady addressed me by mistake,” Dominey explained. “She mistook me, curiously enough, for a man who used to be called my double at Oxford. Sigismund Devinter he was then, although I think he came into a title later on.”

“The Princess is quite a famous personage,” Mr. Mangan remarked, “one of the richest widows in Europe. Her husband was killed in a duel some six or seven years ago.”

Dominey ordered the luncheon with care, slipping into a word or two of German once to assist the waiter, who spoke English with difficulty. His companion smiled.

“I see that you have not forgotten your languages out there in the wilds.”

“I had no chance to,” Dominey answered. “I spent five years on the borders of German East Africa, and I traded with some of the fellows there regularly.”

“By the by,” Mr. Mangan enquired, “what sort of terms are we on with the Germans out there?”

“Excellent, I should think,” was the careless reply. “I never had any trouble.”

“Of course,” the lawyer continued, “this will all be new to you, but during the last few years Englishmen have become divided into two classes⁠—the people who believe that the Germans wish to go to war and crush us, and those who don’t.”

“Then since my return the number of the ‘don’ts’ has been increased by one.”

“I am amongst the doubtfuls myself,” Mr. Mangan remarked. “All the same, I can’t quite see what Germany wants with such an immense army, and why she is continually adding to her fleet.”

Dominey paused for a moment to discuss the matter of a sauce with the head waiter. He returned to the subject a few minutes later on, however.

“Of course,” he pointed out, “my opinions can only come from a study of the newspapers and from conversations with such Germans as I have met out in Africa, but so far as her army is concerned, I should have said that Russia and France were responsible for that, and the more powerful it is, the less chance of any European conflagration. Russia might at any time come to the conclusion that a war is her only salvation against a revolution, and you know the feeling in France about Alsace-Lorraine as well as I do. The Germans themselves say that there is more interest in military matters and more progress being made in Russia today than ever before.”

“I have no doubt that you are right,” agreed Mr. Mangan. “It is a matter which is being a great deal discussed just now, however. Let us speak of your personal plans. What do you intend to do for the next few weeks, say? Have you been to see any of your relatives yet?”

“Not one,” Dominey replied. “I am afraid that I am not altogether keen about making advances.”

Mr. Mangan coughed. “You must remember that during the period of your last residence in London,” he said, “you were in a state of chronic impecuniosity. No doubt that rather affected the attitude of some of those who would otherwise have been more friendly.”

“I should be perfectly content never to see one of them again,” declared Dominey, with perfect truth.

“That, of course, is impossible,” the lawyer protested. “You must go and see the Duchess, at any rate. She was always your champion.”

“The Duchess was always very kind to me,” Dominey admitted doubtfully, “but I am afraid she was rather fed up before I left England.”

Mr. Mangan smiled. He was enjoying a very excellent lunch, which it seemed hard to believe was ordered by a man just home from the wilds of Africa, and he thoroughly enjoyed talking about duchesses.

“Her Grace,” he began⁠—

“Well?”

The lawyer had paused, with his eyes glued upon the couple at a neighbouring table. He leaned across towards his companion.

“The Duchess herself, Sir Everard, just behind you, with Lord St. Omar.”

“This place must certainly be the rendezvous of all the world,” Dominey declared, as he held out his hand to a man who had approached their table. “Seaman, my friend, welcome! Let me introduce you to my friend and legal adviser, Mr. Mangan⁠—Mr. Seaman.”

Mr. Seaman was a short, fat man, immaculately dressed in most conventional morning attire. He was almost bald, except for a little tuft on either side, and a few long, fair hairs carefully brushed back over a shining scalp. His face was extraordinarily round except towards his chin, where it came to a point; his eyes bright and keen, his mouth the mouth of a professional humourist. He shook hands with the lawyer with an empressement which was scarcely English.

“Within the space of half an hour,” Dominey continued, “I find a princess who desires to claim my acquaintance; a cousin,” he dropped his voice a little, “who lunches only a few tables away, and the man of whom I have seen the most during the last ten years amidst scenes a little different from these, eh, Seaman?”

Seaman accepted the chair which the waiter had brought and sat down. The lawyer was immediately interested.

“Do I understand, then,” he asked, addressing the newcomer, “that you knew Sir Everard in Africa?”

Seaman beamed. “Knew him?” he repeated, and with the first words of his speech the fact of his foreign nationality was established. “There was no one of whom I knew so much. We did business together⁠—a great deal of business⁠—and when we were not partners, Sir Everard generally got the best of it.”

Dominey laughed. “Luck generally comes to a man either early or late in life. My luck came late. I think, Seaman, that you must have been my mascot. Nothing went wrong with me during the years that we did business together.”

Seaman was a little excited. He brushed upright with the palm of his hand one of those little tufts of hair left on the side of his head, and he laid his plump fingers upon the lawyer’s shoulder.

“Mr. Mangan,” he said, “you listen to me. I sell this man the controlling interests in a mine, shares which I have held for four and a half years and never drew a penny dividend. I