The Slim Princess

VII

THE ON­LY KOL­DO

Three hours af­ter his pole-​vault, Mr. Alexan­der H. Pike, wear­ing a din­ner-​jack­et new­ly ironed by his man-​slave, and with a soft hat crushed jaun­ti­ly down over the right ear, was pac­ing back and forth in the main cor­ri­dor of the Ho­tel de l'Eu­rope wait­ing for the dread sum­mons to the ta­ble d'hote.

He had to ad­mit to him­self that his nerves seemed to be about as taut as pi­ano wires. He told him­self that pos­si­bly he was “up against it,” and yet he had stood on the brink of dis­as­ter so of­ten dur­ing his col­lege ca­reer with­out ac­quir­ing ver­ti­go, that the ex­pe­ri­ence of the af­ter­noon was like a joy­ous re­new­al of youth.

He had no set pro­gram but he had a feel­ing that if he was to be ques­tioned he would lie en­ter­tain­ing­ly.

Of one thing he was cer­tain--it would help his case if he made no at­tempt to hur­ry across the fron­tier. He be­lieved in the wis­dom of hunt­ing up the au­thor­ities when­ev­er the au­thor­ities were hunt­ing for him. For in­stance, in the prep school, af­ter get­ting the cow in­to the chapel, he dis­cov­ered her there and no­ti­fied the prin­ci­pal and was the on­ly boy who did not fall un­der sus­pi­cion. To as­sume a child­like in­no­cence and to bluff mag­nif­icent­ly,--these had been the twin rules that had saved him so of­ten and would save him now, un­less he should be con­front­ed by the princess or the two guards, in which case--he whis­tled soft­ly.

Sud­den­ly two men came slam­ming in at the front door and stalked down the av­enue of palms. They seemed to be throb­bing with the im­por­tance of their er­rand, as they moved to­ward a lit­tle side of­fice, which was the of­fi­cial lair of the man­ag­er.

One of the men was el­der­ly and wiz­ened and the oth­er was a de­tec­tive. Pike knew it as soon as he glanced at the heavy jowls and the broad face and heard the au­thor­ita­tive foot­fall. He knew, al­so, that he was not a bona fide de­tec­tive, but a mu­nic­ipal de­tec­tive, who is paid a month­ly salary and walks stealthi­ly along side streets in cit­izen's dress, all the time imag­in­ing that the peo­ple he meets take him to be a mer­chant or a lawyer. In this he is mis­tak­en, for he re­sem­bles noth­ing ex­cept a mu­nic­ipal de­tec­tive.

If Mr. Pike had known that the of­fi­cer who ac­com­pa­nied Popo­va was the cel­ebrat­ed Kol­do, chief of the se­cret ser­vice, no doubt the im­pulse to re­treat to his apart­ment and get be­hind the bed canopies would have been stronger. He knew, how­ev­er, that no de­tec­tive of an­alyt­ical meth­ods would ex­pect to find the crim­inal stand­ing at his el­bow, so he fol­lowed the two over to the of­fice and calm­ly wedged him­self in­to the con­fer­ence.

The great Kol­do was ag­itat­ed as he told his sto­ry to the man­ag­er, who was a po­lite and sym­pa­thet­ic im­por­ta­tion from Switzer­land. Popo­va stood by and cor­rob­orat­ed by nod­ding.

“An out­rage of the most dread­ful na­ture has been re­port­ed from the palace,” said Kol­do.

“Dear me!” mur­mured the man­ag­er. “I am so sor­ry.”

“A stranger scaled the wall and en­tered the for­bid­den precincts. He ad­dressed him­self to the Princess Kalo­ra with most in­sult­ing fa­mil­iar­ity. Two of the house­hold guards cap­tured him, but he es­caped af­ter beat­ing them bru­tal­ly. The re­port of the whole af­fair and a de­scrip­tion of the man have been brought to me by the es­teemed Popo­va--this gen­tle­man here, who is court in­ter­preter and in­struc­tor in lan­guages to the roy­al fam­ily.”

Popo­va nod­ded and Mr. Pike saw the scat­tered spires of Besse­mer, Penn­syl­va­nia, whirling away in­to a cloud of dis­ap­pear­ance.

“If you have a de­scrip­tion of the man, no doubt you will be able to find him,” he said, know­ing that this kind of speech would strength­en his plea of in­no­cence when brought out at the tri­al.

The chief of the se­cret ser­vice turned and looked won­der­ing­ly at the bland stranger and re­sumed: “Af­ter some re­flec­tion I have de­cid­ed to make in­quiries at all the ho­tels, to learn if any for­eign­er an­swer­ing this de­scrip­tion has late­ly ar­rived in the city.”

“You may be sure that any in­for­ma­tion I pos­sess will be put at your dis­pos­al im­me­di­ate­ly,” said the man­ag­er, with a smile and a pro­fes­sion­al bow.

The on­ly Kol­do, breath­ing deeply, brought from his pock­et a sheet of pa­per, while Mr. Pike propped him­self de­lib­er­ate­ly against the door and tried to mold his fea­tures in­to that ex­pres­sion of guile­less in­no­cence which he had ob­served on the face of a cherub in the Vat­ican.

“He is very rugged and pow­er­ful,” said the de­tec­tive, re­fer­ring to his notes. “Large, quite large--black hair, dark eyes with a glance that seems to pierce through any­thing--long mus­tache, al­so black--wears much jew­el­ry--speaks with a marked Ger­man ac­cent--wears a suit of Scotch plaid--heavy mil­itary boots.”

Mr. Pike re­moved his hat and al­lowed the elec­tric light to twin­kle on his rud­dy hair.

“How--ah--where did you get this de­scrip­tion?” he asked gen­tly.

“From the Princess her­self,” replied Popo­va. “She saw him at close range.”

“Be­lieve me, I am sor­ry, but no one an­swer­ing the de­scrip­tion has been at my ho­tel,” said the man­ag­er.

“Then I shall go to the Ho­tel Bris­tol and the Ho­tel Vic­to­ria,” an­nounced Kol­do, with some­thing of fierce de­ter­mi­na­tion in his tone.

“An ex­cel­lent plan,” as­sent­ed the man­ag­er.

“Would you mind if I but­ted in with a sug­ges­tion?” said Mr. Pike, lay­ing a friend­ly hand on the arm of the re­doubtable Kol­do. “Don't you think it would be bet­ter if you went alone to these ho­tels? This dis­tin­guished gen­tle­man,” in­di­cat­ing Popo­va, “is well known on ac­count of be­ing a high guy up at the palace. Sure as you live, if he trails around with you, you will be spot­ted. You don't want to hunt this fel­low with a brass band. Be­sides, you don't need any help, do you?”--to the head of the se­cret ser­vice.

“Cer­tain­ly not,” replied the fa­mous de­tec­tive, swelling vis­ibly. “I have all the da­ta--al­ready I am plan­ning my cam­paign.”

“Then I should like to have a talk with Pop-​what's-​his-​name. I think I can slip him a few valu­able point­ers. You go right along and nail your man and we'll sit here in the shade of the shel­ter­ing palm and tell each oth­er our trou­bles.”

“I must re­turn to the palace quite soon,” mur­mured Popo­va, gaz­ing at the stranger un­easi­ly.

“Call a car­riage for the pro­fes­sor,” spoke up Mr. Pike briskly, to the man­ag­er. “I know his time is valu­able, so we'll get down to busi­ness im­me­di­ate­ly, if not soon­er.”

The man­ag­er knew a mil­lion­aire's voice when he heard it, so he hur­ried away. The im­pa­tient Kol­do said that he would com­mu­ni­cate di­rect­ly with the palace as soon as he had ef­fect­ed the cap­ture, and start­ed for the front door. Then, re­mem­ber­ing him­self, he went out the back way.

The old tu­tor, find­ing him­self alone with Mr. Pike, was not per­mit­ted to re­lapse in­to em­bar­rass­ment.

“In the first place, I want you to know who and what I am,” said Mr. Pike. “Come in­to my suite and I'll show you some­thing. Then you'll see that you're not wast­ing your time on a light-​weight.”

He led the way to a large par­lor or­nate­ly done in red, and pulled out from a leather trunk a pass­port is­sued by the De­part­ment of State of the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica. It was a huge parch­ment, with pic­to­ri­al em­bel­lish­ments, heavy Goth­ic type and a seal about the size of a pie. Mr. Pike's phys­ical pe­cu­liar­ities were enu­mer­at­ed and there was a di­rect re­quest that the bear­er be shown ev­ery cour­tesy and at­ten­tion due a cit­izen of the great re­pub­lic. Popo­va looked it over and was im­pressed.

“It isn't ev­ery­body that gets those,” said Mr. Pike, as he put the doc­ument care­ful­ly back in­to the trunk and cov­ered it with shirts. “Have a red chair. Take off your hat--ah, I re­mem­ber, you leave that on, don't you?”

The old gen­tle­man seat­ed him­self, some­what re­as­sured by the cheery man­ner of his host, who sat in front of him and beamed.

Mr. Pike, sup­posed to be giv­en to va­pory and aim­less con­ver­sa­tion, re­al­ly was a gen­er­al. Al­ready we have learned that he based his ev­ery-​day con­duct on a ground­work of safe prin­ci­ples. He had cer­tain pri­vate the­ories, which had stood the test, and when fol­low­ing these the­ories he pro­ceed­ed with bustling con­fi­dence. One of his the­ories was that ev­ery man in the world has a grievance and re­gards him­self as much-​abused, and in or­der to win the re­gard and con­fi­dence of that man, all one has to do is feel around for the grievance and then play up­on it. Mr. Pike, in his province of em­ploy­er, had been com­pelled to study the meth­ods of suc­cess­ful la­bor-​union ag­ita­tors.

“You don't know much about me, but I know plen­ty about you,” he be­gan, clos­ing one eye and nod­ding wise­ly. “I hadn't been here very long be­fore I found out who was the re­al brains of that out­fit up at the palace.”

“Re­al­ly, you know, we are not sup­posed to dis­cuss the mer­its of our ruler,” said Popo­va, fair­ly star­tled at the can­did tone of the oth­er. He lift­ed one hand in timid dep­re­ca­tion.

“Of course you're not. That's why some one who is sim­ply a fig­ure­head goes on tak­ing all the cred­it for tricks turned by a smart fel­low who is work­ing for him. Now, if you lived in the dear old land of ready mon­ey, where the ac­ci­dent of birth doesn't give any man the right to sit on some­body else's neck, you'd be a big gun. You'd have mon­ey and a pull and prob­ably, be­fore you got through, you'd be in­ves­ti­gat­ed. Over here, you are de­lib­er­ate­ly kept in the back­ground. You are the Pat­sy.”

“The what?”

“The squidge--that means the fel­low who does all the wor­ry­ing and gets noth­ing out of it. Now, be­fore you re­turn to what you call the palace, and which looks to me like the main build­ing of the Al­leghe­ny Brick Works, will you do me the hon­or of go­ing in­to that cave of gloom, known as the Amer­ican bar, and hit­ting up just one small li­ba­tion?”

“I am not sure that I catch your mean­ing,” said Popo­va, who felt him­self some­what smoth­ered by rhetoric.

“In­to the bar--down at the lit­tle iron ta­ble--busi­ness of hoist­ing bev­er­age.”

“We of the faith are not sup­posed to par­take of any drink con­tain­ing even a small per­cent­age of al­co­hol.”

“I'm not _sup­posed_ to dal­ly with it my­self, hav­ing been brought up on cis­tern wa­ter, but I find in trav­el­ing that I en­ter­tain a more kind­ly feel­ing for you strange for­eign peo­ple when I car­ry a medi­um-​sized head­light. Come along, now. Don't com­pel me to tear your clothes.”

There was no re­sist­ing the mas­ter­ful spir­it of the young steel mag­nate, and Popo­va was led away to a re­mote apart­ment, where a sin­gle shelf, sparse­ly set with bot­tles, made a weak ef­fort to re­pro­duce the fa­bled splen­dors of far-​away New York.

“Let's see, what shall we tack­le?” asked Mr. Pike, as he checked down the line with a rigid fore­fin­ger. “If you don't care what hap­pens to you, we might try a cou­ple of cock­tails--that is, if you like the taste of _eau de qui­nine_. Oh, I'll tell you what! Here are lemons, seltzer and gin. Boy, two gin fizzes.”

The at­ten­dant, who was very ju­ve­nile and much afraid of his job, smiled and shook his head.

“Do you mean to say that you nev­er heard of a gin fizz?” asked Mr. Pike. “All the in­gre­di­ents with­in reach, sim­ply wait­ing to be in­tro­duced to each oth­er, and you have been hold­ing them apart. You ought to be ashamed of your­self. Bring out some ice. Pro­duce your jig­ger. Get busy. Hand me the tools and I'll do this my­self.”

Then, while the oth­er two looked on in abashed ad­mi­ra­tion, Mr. Pike deft­ly squeezed the lemons and splashed in al­lo­path­ic por­tions of the crys­tal flu­id and used ice most waste­ful­ly. Af­ter vig­or­ous shak­ing and pa­tient strain­ing he shot a seething stream of seltzer in­to each glass and fi­nal­ly de­liv­ered to Popo­va a translu­cent drink that was very tall and capped with foam.

“Hide that, Pro­fes­sor,” he said. “In a few min­utes you will speak sev­er­al new lan­guages.”

Popo­va sipped con­ser­va­tive­ly.

“Don't be afraid,” urged Mr. Pike, en­cour­ag­ing­ly. “If the boy watched me care­ful­ly, pos­si­bly he can du­pli­cate the or­der.”

The youth was more than will­ing, for he sel­dom re­ceived in­struc­tion. With now and then a word of coun­sel or warn­ing from the wise man of the west in the cor­ner, he cau­tious­ly as­sem­bled two oth­er fizzes, while Mr. Pike, in a most non­cha­lant and round­about man­ner, sought in­for­ma­tion con­cern­ing af­fairs of state, lo­cal pol­itics, the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al's house­hold and Princess Kalo­ra. Popo­va told more than he had meant to tell and more than he knew that he was telling.

It may have been that the fizzes were in­sid­ious or that Mr. Pike was un­du­ly per­sua­sive, or that a com­bi­na­tion of these two pow­er­ful in­flu­ences moved the el­der­ly tu­tor to im­puls­es of un­usu­al gen­eros­ity. At any rate, he found him­self pos­sessed of an af­fec­tion for the young man from Besse­mer, Penn­syl­va­nia. It was an af­fec­tion both fa­ther­ly and broth­er­ly. When Mr. Pike asked him to per­form just a small ser­vice for him, he promised and then promised again and was still promis­ing when his host went with him to the car­riage and said that he had not lived in vain and that in years to come he would gath­er his grand­chil­dren around him and tell of the cir­cum­stances of his meet­ing with the great­est schol­ar in south­east­ern Eu­rope.