An African Millionaire Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay

IV

THE EPISODE OF THE TY­ROLEAN CAS­TLE

We went to Mer­an. The place was prac­ti­cal­ly de­cid­ed for us by Amelia’s French maid, who re­al­ly acts on such oc­ca­sions as our guide and couri­er.

She is _such_ a clever girl, is Amelia’s French maid. When­ev­er we are go­ing any­where, Amelia gen­er­al­ly asks (and ac­cepts) her ad­vice as to choice of ho­tels and fur­nished vil­las. Césarine has been all over the Con­ti­nent in her time; and, be­ing Al­sa­tian by birth, she of course speaks Ger­man as well as she speaks French, while her long res­idence with Amelia has made her at last al­most equal­ly at home in our na­tive En­glish. She is a trea­sure, that girl; so neat and dex­ter­ous, and not above dab­bling in any­thing on earth she may be asked to turn her hand to. She walks the world with a nee­dle-​case in one hand and an et­na in the oth­er. She can cook an omelette on oc­ca­sion, or drive a Nor­we­gian car­iole; she can sew, and knit, and make dress­es, and cure a cold, and do any­thing else on earth you ask her. Her sal­ads are the most savoury I ev­er tast­ed; while as for her cof­fee (which she pre­pares for us in the train on long jour­neys), there isn’t a chef de cui­sine at a West-​end club to be named in the same day with her.

So, when Amelia said, in her im­pe­ri­ous way, “Césarine, we want to go to the Ty­rol–now–at once–in mid-​Oc­to­ber; where do you ad­vise us to put up?”–Césarine an­swered, like a shot, “The Erzher­zog Jo­hann, of course, at Mer­an, for the au­tumn, madame.”

“Is he … an arch­duke?” Amelia asked, a lit­tle stag­gered at such ap­par­ent fa­mil­iar­ity with Im­pe­ri­al per­son­ages.

“Ma foi! no, madame. He is an ho­tel–as you would say in Eng­land, the ‘Vic­to­ria’ or the ‘Prince of Wales’s’–the most com­fort­able ho­tel in all South Ty­rol; and at this time of year, nat­ural­ly, you must go be­yond the Alps; it be­gins al­ready to be cold at Inns­bruck.”

So to Mer­an we went; and a pret­ti­er or more pic­turesque place, I con­fess, I have sel­dom set eyes on. A rush­ing tor­rent; high hills and moun­tain peaks; ter­raced vine­yard slopes; old walls and tow­ers; quaint, ar­cad­ed streets; a crag­gy wa­ter­fall; a prom­enade af­ter the fash­ion of a Ger­man Spa; and when you lift your eyes from the ground, jagged sum­mits of Dolomites: it was a com­bi­na­tion such as I had nev­er be­fore be­held; a Rhine town plumped down among green Alpine heights, and thread­ed by the cool colon­nades of Italy.

I ap­proved Césarine’s choice; and I was par­tic­ular­ly glad she had pro­nounced for an ho­tel, where all is plain sail­ing, in­stead of ad­vis­ing a fur­nished vil­la, the ar­range­ments for which would nat­ural­ly have fall­en in large part up­on the shoul­ders of the wretched sec­re­tary. As in any case I have to do three hours’ work a day, I feel that such ad­di­tions to my nor­mal bur­den may well be spared me. I tipped Césarine half a sovereign, in fact, for her ju­di­cious choice. Césarine glanced at it on her palm in her mys­te­ri­ous, cu­ri­ous, half-​smil­ing way, and pock­et­ed it at once with a “Mer­ci, mon­sieur!” that had a touch of con­tempt in it. I al­ways fan­cy Césarine has large ideas of her own on the sub­ject of tip­ping, and thinks very small beer of the mod­est sums a mere sec­re­tary can alone af­ford to be­stow up­on her.

The great pe­cu­liar­ity of Mer­an is the num­ber of schloss­es (I be­lieve my plu­ral is strict­ly ir­reg­ular, but very con­ve­nient to En­glish ears) which you can see in ev­ery di­rec­tion from its out­skirts. A sta­tis­ti­cal eye, it is sup­posed, can count no few­er than forty of these pic­turesque, ramshack­led old cas­tles from a point on the Küchel­berg. For my­self, I hate statis­tics (ex­cept as an el­ement in fi­nan­cial prospec­tus­es), and I re­al­ly don’t know how many ru­inous piles Is­abel and Amelia count­ed un­der Césarine’s guid­ance; but I re­mem­ber that most of them were quaint and beau­ti­ful, and that their va­ri­ety of ar­chi­tec­ture seemed pos­itive­ly be­wil­der­ing. One would be square, with fun­ny lit­tle tur­rets stuck out at each an­gle; while an­oth­er would re­joice in a big round keep, and spread on ei­ther side long, ivy-​clad walls and de­light­ful bas­tions. Charles was im­mense­ly tak­en with them. He loves the pic­turesque, and has a po­et hid­den in that fi­nan­cial soul of his. (Very ef­fec­tu­al­ly hid­den, though, I am ready to grant you.) From the mo­ment he came he felt at once he would love to pos­sess a cas­tle of his own among these ro­man­tic moun­tains. “Sel­don!” he ex­claimed con­temp­tu­ous­ly. “They call Sel­don a cas­tle! But you and I know very well, Sey, it was built in 1860, with sham an­tique stones, for Macpher­son of Sel­don, at mar­ket rates, by Cu­bitt and Co., wor­ship­ful con­trac­tors of Lon­don. Macpher­son charged me for that sham an­tiq­ui­ty a pre­pos­ter­ous price, at which one ought to pro­cure a re­al an­ces­tral man­sion. Now, _these_ cas­tles are re­al. They are hoary with an­tiq­ui­ty. Schloss Ty­rol is Ro­manesque–tenth or eleventh cen­tu­ry.” (He had been read­ing it up in Baedek­er.) “That’s the sort of place for _me_!–tenth or eleventh cen­tu­ry. I could live here, re­mote from stocks and shares, for ev­er; and in these se­questered glens, rec­ol­lect, Sey, my boy, there are no Colonel Clays, and no arch Madame Pi­cardets!”

As a mat­ter of fact, he could have lived there six weeks, and then tired for Park Lane, Monte Car­lo, Brighton.

As for Amelia, strange to say, she was equal­ly tak­en with this new fad of Charles’s. As a rule she hates ev­ery­where on earth save Lon­don, ex­cept dur­ing the time when no re­spectable per­son can be seen in town, and when mod­est blinds shade the scan­dalised face of May­fair and Bel­gravia. She bores her­self to death even at Sel­don Cas­tle, Ross-​shire, and yawns all day long in Paris or Vi­en­na. She is a con­firmed Cock­ney. Yet, for some oc­cult rea­son, my ami­able sis­ter-​in-​law fell in love with South Ty­rol. She want­ed to veg­etate in that lush veg­eta­tion. The grapes were be­ing picked; pump­kins hung over the walls; Vir­ginia creep­er draped the quaint gray schloss­es with crim­son cloaks; and ev­ery­thing was as beau­ti­ful as a dream of Burne-​Jones’s. (I know I am quite right in men­tion­ing Burne-​Jones, es­pe­cial­ly in con­nec­tion with Ro­manesque ar­chi­tec­ture, be­cause I heard him high­ly praised on that very ground by our friend and en­emy, Dr. Ed­ward Polper­ro.) So per­haps it was ex­cus­able that Amelia should fall in love with it all, un­der the cir­cum­stances; be­sides, she is large­ly in­flu­enced by what Césarine says, and Césarine de­clares there is no cli­mate in Eu­rope like Mer­an in win­ter. I do not agree with her. The sun sets be­hind the hills at three in the af­ter­noon, and a nasty warm wind blows moist over the snow in Jan­uary and Febru­ary.

How­ev­er, Amelia set Césarine to in­quire of the peo­ple at the ho­tel about the mar­ket price of tum­ble­down ru­ins, and the num­ber of such el­igi­ble fam­ily mau­soleums just then for sale in the im­me­di­ate neigh­bour­hood. Césarine re­turned with a full, true, and par­tic­ular list, adorned with flow­ers of rhetoric which would have de­light­ed the soul of good old John Robins. They were all pic­turesque, all Ro­manesque, all rich­ly ivy-​clad, all com­modi­ous, all his­tor­ical, and all the prop­er­ty of high well-​born Grafs and very hon­ourable Frei­herrs. Most of them had been the scene of cel­ebrat­ed tour­na­ments; sev­er­al of them had wit­nessed the gor­geous mar­riages of Holy Ro­man Em­per­ors; and ev­ery one of them was pro­vid­ed with some choice and se­lect­ed first-​class mur­ders. Ghosts could be ar­ranged for or not, as de­sired; and ar­mo­ri­al bear­ings could be thrown in with the moat for a mod­er­ate ex­tra re­mu­ner­ation.

The two we liked best of all these tempt­ing piles were Schloss Plan­ta and Schloss Leben­stein. We drove past both, and even I my­self, I con­fess, was dis­tinct­ly tak­en with them. (Be­sides, when a big pur­chase like this is on the stocks, a poor beg­gar of a sec­re­tary has al­ways a chance of ex­ert­ing his in­flu­ence and earn­ing for him­self some mod­est com­mis­sion.) Schloss Plan­ta was the most strik­ing ex­ter­nal­ly, I should say, with its Rhine-​like tow­ers, and its great gnarled ivy-​stems, that looked as if they an­te­dat­ed the House of Haps­burg; but Leben­stein was said to be bet­ter pre­served with­in, and more fit­ted in ev­ery way for mod­ern oc­cu­pa­tion. Its stair­case has been pho­tographed by 7000 am­ateurs.

We got tick­ets to view. The in­valu­able Césarine pro­cured them for us. Armed with these, we drove off one fine af­ter­noon, mean­ing to go to Plan­ta, by Césarine’s rec­om­men­da­tion. Half-​way there, how­ev­er, we changed our minds, as it was such a love­ly day, and went on up the long, slow hill to Leben­stein. I must say the drive through the grounds was sim­ply charm­ing. The cas­tle stands perched (say rather poised, like St. Michael the archangel in Ital­ian pic­tures) on a soli­tary stack or crag of rock, look­ing down on ev­ery side up­on its own rich vine­yards. Chest­nuts line the glens; the val­ley of the Etsch spreads be­low like a pic­ture.

The vine­yards alone make a splen­did es­tate, by the way; they pro­duce a de­li­cious red wine, which is ex­port­ed to Bor­deaux, and there bot­tled and sold as a vin­tage claret un­der the name of Chateau Mon­nivet. Charles rev­elled in the idea of grow­ing his own wines.

“Here we could sit,” he cried to Amelia, “in the most lit­er­al sense, un­der our own vine and fig-​tree. De­li­cious re­tire­ment! For my part, I’m sick and tired of the hub­bub of Thread­nee­dle Street.”

We knocked at the door–for there was re­al­ly no bell, but a pon­der­ous, old-​fash­ioned, wrought-​iron knock­er. So de­li­cious­ly mediæ­val! The late Graf von Leben­stein had re­cent­ly died, we knew; and his son, the present Count, a young man of means, hav­ing in­her­it­ed from his moth­er’s fam­ily a still more an­cient and splen­did schloss in the Salzburg dis­trict, de­sired to sell this out­ly­ing es­tate in or­der to af­ford him­self a yacht, af­ter the man­ner that is now be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly fash­ion­able with the no­ble­men and gen­tle­men in Ger­many and Aus­tria.

The door was opened for us by a high well-​born me­nial, at­tired in a very an­cient and hon­ourable liv­ery. Nice an­tique hall; suits of an­ces­tral ar­mour, tro­phies of Ty­rolese hunters, coats of arms of an­cient counts–the very thing to take Amelia’s aris­to­crat­ic and ro­man­tic fan­cy. The whole to be sold ex­act­ly as it stood; an­ces­tors to be in­clud­ed at a val­ua­tion.

We went through the re­cep­tion-​rooms. They were lofty, charm­ing, and with glo­ri­ous views, all the more glo­ri­ous for be­ing framed by those grace­ful Ro­manesque win­dows, with their slen­der pil­lars and quaint, round-​topped arch­es. Sir Charles had made his mind up. “I must and will have it!” he cried. “This is the place for me. Sel­don! Pah, Sel­don is a mod­ern abom­ina­tion.”

Could we see the high well-​born Count? The liv­er­ied ser­vant (some­what haugh­ti­ly) would in­quire of his Seren­ity. Sir Charles sent up his card, and al­so La­dy Van­drift’s. These for­eign­ers know ti­tle spells mon­ey in Eng­land.

He was right in his sur­mise. Two min­utes lat­er the Count en­tered with our cards in his hands. A good-​look­ing young man, with the char­ac­ter­is­tic Ty­rolese long black mous­tache, dressed in a gen­tle­man­ly vari­ant on the cos­tume of the coun­try. His air was a jager’s; the usu­al black­cock’s plume stuck jaun­ti­ly in the side of the con­ical hat (which he held in his hand), af­ter the uni­ver­sal Aus­tri­an fash­ion.

He waved us to seats. We sat down. He spoke to us in French; his En­glish, he re­marked, with a pleas­ant smile, be­ing a nég­lige­able quan­ti­ty. We might speak it, he went on; he could un­der­stand pret­ty well; but he pre­ferred to an­swer, if we would al­low him, in French or Ger­man.

“French,” Charles replied, and the ne­go­ti­ation con­tin­ued thence­forth in that lan­guage. It is the on­ly one, save En­glish and his an­ces­tral Dutch, with which my broth­er-​in-​law pos­sess­es even a nod­ding ac­quain­tance.

We praised the beau­ti­ful scene. The Count’s face light­ed up with pa­tri­ot­ic pride. Yes; it was beau­ti­ful, beau­ti­ful, his own green Ty­rol. He was proud of it and at­tached to it. But he could en­dure to sell this place, the home of his fa­thers, be­cause he had a fin­er in the Salzkam­mergut, and a pied-​à-​terre near Inns­bruck. For Ty­rol lacked just one joy–the sea. He was a pas­sion­ate yachts­man. For that he had re­solved to sell this es­tate; af­ter all, three coun­try hous­es, a ship, and a man­sion in Vi­en­na, are more than one man can com­fort­ably in­hab­it.

“Ex­act­ly,” Charles an­swered. “If I can come to terms with you about this charm­ing es­tate I shall sell my own cas­tle in the Scotch High­lands.” And he tried to look like a proud Scotch chief who ha­rangues his clans­men.

Then they got to busi­ness. The Count was a de­light­ful man to do busi­ness with. His man­ners were per­fect. While we were talk­ing to him, a surly per­son, a stew­ard or bailiff, or some­thing of the sort, came in­to the room un­ex­pect­ed­ly and ad­dressed him in Ger­man, which none of us un­der­stand. We were im­pressed by the sin­gu­lar ur­ban­ity and be­nig­ni­ty of the no­ble­man’s de­meanour to­wards this sullen de­pen­dant. He ev­ident­ly ex­plained to the fel­low what sort of peo­ple we were, and re­mon­strat­ed with him in a very gen­tle way for in­ter­rupt­ing us. The stew­ard un­der­stood, and clear­ly re­gret­ted his in­so­lent air; for af­ter a few sen­tences he went out, and as he did so he bowed and made protes­ta­tions of po­lite re­gard in his own lan­guage. The Count turned to us and smiled. “Our peo­ple,” he said, “are like your own Scotch peas­ants–kind-​heart­ed, pic­turesque, free, mu­si­cal, po­et­ic, but want­ing, hélas, in pol­ish to strangers.” He was cer­tain­ly an ex­cep­tion, if he de­scribed them aright; for he made us feel at home from the mo­ment we en­tered.

He named his price in frank terms. His lawyers at Mer­an held the need­ful doc­uments, and would ar­range the ne­go­ti­ations in de­tail with us. It was a stiff sum, I must say–an ex­treme­ly stiff sum; but no doubt he was charg­ing us a fan­cy price for a fan­cy cas­tle. “He will come down in time,” Charles said. “The sum first named in all these trans­ac­tions is in­vari­ably a feel­er. They know I’m a mil­lion­aire; and peo­ple al­ways imag­ine mil­lion­aires are pos­itive­ly made of mon­ey.”

I may add that peo­ple al­ways imag­ine it must be eas­ier to squeeze mon­ey out of mil­lion­aires than out of oth­er peo­ple–which is the re­verse of the truth, or how could they ev­er have amassed their mil­lions? In­stead of ooz­ing gold as a tree oozes gum, they mop it up like blot­ting-​pa­per, and sel­dom give it out again.

We drove back from this first in­ter­view none the less very well sat­is­fied. The price was too high; but pre­lim­inar­ies were ar­ranged, and for the rest, the Count de­sired us to dis­cuss all de­tails with his lawyers in the chief street, Unter den Lauben. We in­quired about these lawyers, and found they were most re­spectable and re­spect­ed men; they had done the fam­ily busi­ness on ei­ther side for sev­en gen­er­ations.

They showed us plans and ti­tle-​deeds. Ev­ery­thing quite en ré­gle. Till we came to the price there was no hitch of any sort.

As to price, how­ev­er, the lawyers were ob­du­rate. They stuck out for the Count’s first sum to the ut­ter­most florin. It was a very big es­ti­mate. We talked and shilly-​shal­lied till Sir Charles grew an­gry. He lost his tem­per at last.

“They know I’m a mil­lion­aire, Sey,” he said, “and they’re play­ing the old game of try­ing to did­dle me. But I won’t be did­dled. Ex­cept Colonel Clay, no man has ev­er yet suc­ceed­ed in bleed­ing me. And shall I let my­self be bled as if I were a chamois among these in­no­cent moun­tains? Per­ish the thought!” Then he re­flect­ed a lit­tle in si­lence. “Sey,” he mused on, at last, “the ques­tion is, _are_ they in­no­cent? Do you know, I be­gin to be­lieve there is no such thing left as pris­tine in­no­cence any­where. This Ty­rolese Count knows the val­ue of a pound as dis­tinct­ly as if he hung out in Capel Court or Kim­ber­ley.”

Things dragged on in this way, in­con­clu­sive­ly, for a week or two. _We_ bid down; the lawyers stuck to it. Sir Charles grew half sick of the whole sil­ly busi­ness. For my own part, I felt sure if the high well-​born Count didn’t quick­en his pace, my re­spect­ed rel­ative would short­ly have had enough of the Ty­rol al­to­geth­er, and be proof against the most love­ly of crag-​crown­ing cas­tles. But the Count didn’t see it. He came to call on us at our ho­tel–a rare hon­our for a stranger with these haughty and ex­clu­sive Ty­rolese no­bles–and even en­tered unan­nounced in the most friend­ly man­ner. But when it came to L. s. d., he was ab­so­lute adamant. Not one kreutzer would he abate from his orig­inal pro­pos­al.

“You mis­un­der­stand,” he said, with pride. “We Ty­rolese gen­tle­men are not shop­keep­ers or mer­chants. We do not hig­gle. If we say a thing we stick to it. Were you an Aus­tri­an, I should feel in­sult­ed by your ill-​ad­vised at­tempt to beat down my price. But as you be­long to a great com­mer­cial na­tion–” he broke off with a snort and shrugged his shoul­ders com­pas­sion­ate­ly.

We saw him sev­er­al times driv­ing in and out of the schloss, and ev­ery time he waved his hand at us grace­ful­ly. But when we tried to bar­gain, it was al­ways the same thing: he re­tired be­hind the shel­ter of his Ty­rolese no­bil­ity. We might take it or leave it. ‘Twas still Schloss Leben­stein.

The lawyers were as bad. We tried all we knew, and got no for­rarder.

At last Charles gave up the at­tempt in dis­gust. He was tir­ing, as I ex­pect­ed. “It’s the pret­ti­est place I ev­er saw in my life,” he said; “but, hang it all, Sey, I _won’t_ be im­posed up­on.”

So he made up his mind, it be­ing now De­cem­ber, to re­turn to Lon­don. We met the Count next day, and stopped his car­riage, and told him so. Charles thought this would have the im­me­di­ate ef­fect of bring­ing the man to rea­son. But he on­ly lift­ed his hat, with the black­cock’s feath­er, and smiled a bland smile. “The Arch­duke Karl is in­quir­ing about it,” he an­swered, and drove on with­out par­ley.

Charles used some strong words, which I will not tran­scribe (I am a fam­ily man), and re­turned to Eng­land.

For the next two months we heard lit­tle from Amelia save her re­gret that the Count wouldn’t sell us Schloss Leben­stein. Its pin­na­cles had fair­ly pierced her heart. Strange to say, she was ab­so­lute­ly in­fat­uat­ed about the cas­tle. She rather want­ed the place while she was there, and thought she could get it; now she thought she couldn’t, her soul (if she has one) was wild­ly set up­on it. More­over, Césarine fur­ther in­flamed her de­sire by gen­tly hint­ing a fact which she had picked up at the couri­er’s ta­ble d’hôte at the ho­tel–that the Count had been far from anx­ious to sell his an­ces­tral and his­tor­ical es­tate to a South African di­amond king. He thought the hon­our of the fam­ily de­mand­ed, at least, that he should se­cure a wealthy buy­er of good an­cient lin­eage.

One morn­ing in Febru­ary, how­ev­er, Amelia re­turned from the Row all smiles and tremors. (She had been or­dered horse-​ex­er­cise to cor­rect the in­creas­ing ex­ces­sive­ness of her fig­ure.)

“Who do you think I saw rid­ing in the Park?” she in­quired. “Why, the Count of Leben­stein.”

“No!” Charles ex­claimed, in­cred­ulous.

“Yes,” Amelia an­swered.

“Must be mis­tak­en,” Charles cried.

But Amelia stuck to it. More than that, she sent out emis­saries to in­quire dili­gent­ly from the Lon­don lawyers, whose name had been men­tioned to us by the an­ces­tral firm in Unter den Lauben as their En­glish agents, as to the where­abouts of our friend; and her emis­saries learned in ef­fect that the Count was in town and stop­ping at Mor­ley’s.

“I see through it,” Charles ex­claimed. “He finds he’s made a mis­take; and now he’s come over here to re­open ne­go­ti­ations.”

I was all for wait­ing pru­dent­ly till the Count made the first move. “Don’t let him see your ea­ger­ness,” I said. But Amelia’s ar­dour could not now be re­strained. She in­sist­ed that Charles should call on the Graf as a mere re­turn of his po­lite­ness in the Ty­rol.

He was as charm­ing as ev­er. He talked to us with de­light about the quaint­ness of Lon­don. He would be rav­ished to dine next evening with Sir Charles. He de­sired his re­spect­ful salu­ta­tions mean­while to Mi­la­di Van­drift and Madame Ventvorth.

He dined with us, al­most en famille. Amelia’s cook did won­ders. In the bil­liard-​room, about mid­night, Charles re­opened the sub­ject. The Count was re­al­ly touched. It pleased him that still, amid the dis­trac­tions of the City of Five Mil­lion Souls, we should re­mem­ber with af­fec­tion his beloved Leben­stein.

“Come to my lawyers,” he said, “to-​mor­row, and I will talk it all over with you.”

We went–a most re­spectable firm in Southamp­ton Row; old fam­ily so­lic­itors. They had done busi­ness for years for the late Count, who had in­her­it­ed from his grand­moth­er es­tates in Ire­land; and they were glad to be hon­oured with the con­fi­dence of his suc­ces­sor. Glad, too, to make the ac­quain­tance of a prince of fi­nance like Sir Charles Van­drift. Anx­ious (rub­bing their hands) to ar­range mat­ters sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly all round for ev­ery­body. (Two cap­ital fam­ilies with which to be mixed up, you see.)

Sir Charles named a price, and re­ferred them to his so­lic­itors. The Count named a high­er, but still a lit­tle come-​down, and left the mat­ter to be set­tled be­tween the lawyers. He was a sol­dier and a gen­tle­man, he said, with a Ty­rolese toss of his high-​born head; he would aban­don de­tails to men of busi­ness.

As I was re­al­ly anx­ious to oblige Amelia, I met the Count ac­ci­den­tal­ly next day on the steps of Mor­ley’s. (Ac­ci­den­tal­ly, that is to say, so far as he was con­cerned, though I had been hang­ing about in Trafal­gar Square for half an hour to see him.) I ex­plained, in guard­ed terms, that I had a great deal of in­flu­ence in my way with Sir Charles; and that a word from me– I broke off. He stared at me blankly.

“Com­mis­sion?” he in­quired, at last, with a queer lit­tle smile.

“Well, not ex­act­ly com­mis­sion,” I an­swered, winc­ing. “Still, a friend­ly word, you know. One good turn de­serves an­oth­er.”

He looked at me from head to foot with a cu­ri­ous scruti­ny. For one mo­ment I feared the Ty­rolese no­ble­man in him was go­ing to raise its foot and take ac­tive mea­sures. But the next, I saw that Sir Charles was right af­ter all, and that pris­tine in­no­cence has re­moved from this plan­et to oth­er quar­ters.

He named his low­est price. “M. Ventvorth,” he said, “I am a Ty­rolese seigneur; I do not dab­ble, my­self, in com­mis­sions and per­cent­ages. But if your in­flu­ence with Sir Charles–we un­der­stand each oth­er, do we not?–as be­tween gen­tle­men–a lit­tle friend­ly present–no mon­ey, of course–but the equiv­alent of say 5 per cent in jew­ellery, on what­ev­er sum above his bid to-​day you in­duce him to of­fer–eh?–c’est con­venu?”

“Ten per cent is more usu­al,” I mur­mured.

He was the Aus­tri­an hus­sar again. “Five, mon­sieur–or noth­ing!”

I bowed and with­drew. “Well, five then,” I an­swered, “just to oblige your Seren­ity.”

A sec­re­tary, af­ter all, can do a great deal. When it came to the scratch, I had but lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty in per­suad­ing Sir Charles, with Amelia’s aid, backed up on ei­ther side by Is­abel and Césarine, to ac­cede to the Count’s more rea­son­able pro­pos­al. The Southamp­ton Row peo­ple had pos­ses­sion of cer­tain facts as to the val­ue of the wines in the Bor­deaux mar­ket which clinched the mat­ter. In a week or two all was set­tled; Charles and I met the Count by ap­point­ment in Southamp­ton Row, and saw him sign, seal, and de­liv­er the ti­tle-​deeds of Schloss Leben­stein. My broth­er-​in-​law paid the pur­chase-​mon­ey in­to the Count’s own hands, by cheque, crossed on a first-​class Lon­don firm where the Count kept an ac­count to his high well-​born or­der. Then he went away with the proud knowl­edge that he was own­er of Schloss Leben­stein. And what to me was more im­por­tant still, I re­ceived next morn­ing by post a cheque for the five per cent, un­for­tu­nate­ly drawn, by some mis­ap­pre­hen­sion, to my or­der on the self-​same bankers, and with the Count’s sig­na­ture. He ex­plained in the ac­com­pa­ny­ing note that the mat­ter be­ing now quite sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly con­clud­ed, he saw no rea­son of del­ica­cy why the amount he had promised should not be paid to me forth­with di­rect in mon­ey.

I cashed the cheque at once, and said noth­ing about the af­fair, not even to Is­abel. My ex­pe­ri­ence is that wom­en are not to be trust­ed with in­tri­cate mat­ters of com­mis­sion and bro­ker­age.

Though it was now late in March, and the House was sit­ting, Charles in­sist­ed that we must all run over at once to take pos­ses­sion of our mag­nif­icent Ty­rolese cas­tle. Amelia was al­most equal­ly burn­ing with ea­ger­ness. She gave her­self the airs of a Count­ess al­ready. We took the Ori­ent Ex­press as far as Mu­nich; then the Bren­ner to Mer­an, and put up for the night at the Erzher­zog Jo­hann. Though we had tele­graphed our ar­rival, and ex­pect­ed some fuss, there was no demon­stra­tion. Next morn­ing we drove out in state to the schloss, to en­ter in­to en­joy­ment of our vines and fig-​trees.

We were met at the door by the surly stew­ard. “I shall dis­miss that man,” Charles mut­tered, as Lord of Leben­stein. “He’s too sour-​look­ing for my taste. Nev­er saw such a brute. Not a smile of wel­come!”

He mount­ed the steps. The surly man stepped for­ward and mur­mured a few mo­rose words in Ger­man. Charles brushed him aside and strode on. Then there fol­lowed a cu­ri­ous scene of mu­tu­al mis­un­der­stand­ing. The surly man called lusti­ly for his ser­vants to eject us. It was some time be­fore we be­gan to catch at the truth. The surly man was the _re­al_ Graf von Leben­stein.

And the Count with the mous­tache? It dawned up­on us now. Colonel Clay again! More au­da­cious than ev­er!

Bit by bit it all came out. He had rid­den be­hind us the first day we viewed the place, and, giv­ing him­self out to the ser­vants as one of our par­ty, had joined us in the re­cep­tion-​room. We asked the re­al Count why he had spo­ken to the in­trud­er. The Count ex­plained in French that the man with the mous­tache had in­tro­duced my broth­er-​in-​law as the great South African mil­lion­aire, while he de­scribed him­self as our couri­er and in­ter­preter. As such he had had fre­quent in­ter­views with the re­al Graf and his lawyers in Mer­an, and had driv­en al­most dai­ly across to the cas­tle. The own­er of the es­tate had named one price from the first, and had stuck to it man­ful­ly. He stuck to it still; and if Sir Charles chose to buy Schloss Leben­stein over again he was wel­come to have it. How the Lon­don lawyers had been duped the Count had not re­al­ly the slight­est idea. He re­gret­ted the in­ci­dent, and (cold­ly) wished us a very good morn­ing.

There was noth­ing for it but to re­turn as best we might to the Erzher­zog Jo­hann, crest­fall­en, and tele­graph par­tic­ulars to the po­lice in Lon­don.

Charles and I ran across post-​haste to Eng­land to track down the vil­lain. At Southamp­ton Row we found the le­gal firm by no means pen­itent; on the con­trary, they were in­dig­nant at the way we had de­ceived them. An im­pos­tor had writ­ten to them on Leben­stein pa­per from Mer­an to say that he was com­ing to Lon­don to ne­go­ti­ate the sale of the schloss and sur­round­ing prop­er­ty with the fa­mous mil­lion­aire, Sir Charles Van­drift; and Sir Charles had demon­stra­tive­ly recog­nised him at sight as the re­al Count von Leben­stein. The firm had nev­er seen the present Graf at all, and had swal­lowed the im­pos­tor whole, so to speak, on the strength of Sir Charles’s ob­vi­ous recog­ni­tion. He had brought over as doc­uments some most ex­cel­lent forg­eries–fac­sim­iles of the orig­inals–which, as our couri­er and in­ter­preter, he had ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty of ex­am­in­ing and in­spect­ing at the Mer­an lawyers’. It was a deeply-​laid plot, and it had suc­ceed­ed to a mar­vel. Yet, all of it de­pend­ed up­on the one small fact that we had ac­cept­ed the man with the long mous­tache in the hall of the schloss as the Count von Leben­stein on his own rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

He held our cards in his hands when he came in; and the ser­vant had _not_ giv­en them to him, but to the gen­uine Count. That was the one un­solved mys­tery in the whole ad­ven­ture.

By the evening’s post two let­ters ar­rived for us at Sir Charles’s house: one for my­self, and one for my em­ploy­er. Sir Charles’s ran thus:–

“HIGH WELL-​BORN IN­COM­PE­TENCE,–

“I on­ly just pulled through! A very small slip near­ly lost me ev­ery­thing. I be­lieved you were go­ing to Schloss Plan­ta that day, not to Schloss Leben­stein. You changed your mind en route. That might have spoiled all. Hap­pi­ly I per­ceived it, rode up by the short cut, and ar­rived some­what hur­ried­ly and hot­ly at the gate be­fore you. Then I in­tro­duced my­self. I had one more bad mo­ment when the ri­val claimant to my name and ti­tle in­trud­ed in­to the room. But for­tune favours the brave: your ut­ter ig­no­rance of Ger­man saved me. The rest was pap. It went by it­self al­most.

“Al­low me, now, as some small re­turn for your var­ious wel­come cheques, to of­fer you a use­ful and valu­able present–a Ger­man dic­tio­nary, gram­mar, and phrase-​book!

“I kiss your hand.

“No longer

“VON LEBEN­STEIN.”

The oth­er note was to me. It was as fol­lows:–

“DEAR GOOD MR. VENTVORTH,–

“Ha, ha, ha; just a W mis­placed suf­ficed to take you in, then! And I risked the TH, though any­body with a head on his shoul­ders would sure­ly have known our TH is by far more dif­fi­cult than our W for for­eign­ers! How­ev­er, all’s well that ends well; and now I’ve got you. The Lord has de­liv­ered you in­to my hands, dear friend–on your own ini­tia­tive. I hold my cheque, en­dorsed by you, and cashed at my banker’s, as a hostage, so to speak, for your fu­ture good be­haviour. If ev­er you recog­nise me, and be­tray me to that solemn old ass, your em­ploy­er, re­mem­ber, I ex­pose it, and you with it to him. So now we un­der­stand each oth­er. I had not thought of this lit­tle dodge; it was you who sug­gest­ed it. How­ev­er, I jumped at it. Was it not well worth my while pay­ing you that slight com­mis­sion in re­turn for a guar­an­tee of your fu­ture si­lence? Your mouth is now closed. And cheap too at the price.–Yours, dear Com­rade, in the great con­fra­ter­ni­ty of rogues,

“CUTH­BERT CLAY, Colonel.”

Charles laid his note down, and griz­zled. “What’s yours, Sey?” he asked.

“From a la­dy,” I an­swered.

He gazed at me sus­pi­cious­ly. “Oh, I thought it was the same hand,” he said. His eye looked through me.

“No,” I an­swered. “Mrs. Mor­timer’s.” But I con­fess I trem­bled.

He paused a mo­ment. “You made all in­quiries at this fel­low’s bank?” he went on, af­ter a deep sigh.

“Oh, yes,” I put in quick­ly. (I had tak­en good care about that, you may be sure, lest he should spot the com­mis­sion.) “They say the self-​styled Count von Leben­stein was in­tro­duced to them by the Southamp­ton Row folks, and drew, as usu­al, on the Leben­stein ac­count: so they were quite un­sus­pi­cious. A ras­cal who goes about the world on that scale, you know, and ar­rives with such cre­den­tials as theirs and yours, nat­ural­ly im­pos­es on any­body. The bank didn’t even re­quire to have him for­mal­ly iden­ti­fied. The firm was enough. He came to pay mon­ey in, not to draw it out. And he with­drew his bal­ance just two days lat­er, say­ing he was in a hur­ry to get back to Vi­en­na.”

Would he ask for items? I con­fess I felt it was an awk­ward mo­ment. Charles, how­ev­er, was too full of re­grets to both­er about the ac­count. He leaned back in his easy chair, stuck his hands in his pock­ets, held his legs straight out on the fend­er be­fore him, and looked the very pic­ture of hope­less de­spon­den­cy.

“Sey,” he be­gan, af­ter a minute or two, pok­ing the fire, re­flec­tive­ly, “what a ge­nius that man has! ‘Pon my soul, I ad­mire him. I some­times wish–” He broke off and hes­itat­ed.

“Yes, Charles?” I an­swered.

“I some­times wish … we had got him on the Board of the Cloete­dorp Gol­con­das. Mag–nif­icent com­bi­na­tions he would make in the City!”

I rose from my seat and stared solemn­ly at my mis­guid­ed broth­er-​in-​law.

“Charles,” I said, “you are be­side your­self. Too much Colonel Clay has told up­on your clear and splen­did in­tel­lect. There are cer­tain re­marks which, how­ev­er true they may be, no self-​re­spect­ing fi­nancier should per­mit him­self to make, even in the pri­va­cy of his own room, to his most in­ti­mate friend and trust­ed ad­vis­er.”

Charles fair­ly broke down. “You are right, Sey,” he sobbed out. “Quite right. For­give this out­burst. At mo­ments of emo­tion the truth will some­times out, in spite of ev­ery­thing.”

I re­spect­ed his fee­ble­ness. I did not even make it a fit­ting oc­ca­sion to ask for a tri­fling in­crease of salary.