The Great Court Scandal

Le Queux William

The Great Court Scandal

PrefaceWilliam Le Queux

William Le Queux, one of the most popular of present-day authors, was born in London on July 2, 1864. He has followed many callings in his time. After studying art in Paris, he made a tour on foot through France and Germany. Then he drifted into journalism, attaching himself to the Paris “Morning News.” Later, he crossed to London, where he joined the staff of the “Globe” in the Gallery of the House of Commons. This was in 1888, and he continued to report Parliament till 1891, when he was appointed a sub-editor on the “Globe.” Along with his work as a journalist he developed his faculty for fiction, and in 1893 resigned his position on the press to take up novel-writing as a business. His first book was “Guilty Bonds” published in 1890. Since that date he has issued an average of three novels a year. One of Mr Le Queux’s recreations is revolver practice, and that may account for the free use of the “shooting iron” which distinguishes some of his romances.

Prologue

“The Ladybird will refuse to have anything to do with the affair, my dear fellow. It touches a woman’s honour, and I know her too well.”

“Bah! We’ll compel her to help us. She must.”

“She wouldn’t risk it,” declared Harry Kinder, shaking his head.

“Risk it! Well, we’ll have to risk something! We’re in a nice hole just now! Our traps at the Grand, with a bill of two thousand seven hundred francs to pay, and ‘the Ladybird’ coolly sends us from London a postal order for twenty-seven shillings and sixpence – all she has!”

“She might have kept it and bought a new sunshade or a box of chocolates with it.”

“The little fool! Fancy sending twenty-seven bob to three men stranded in Paris! I can’t see why old Roddy thinks so much of her,” remarked Guy Bourne to his companion.

“Because she’s his daughter, and because after all you must admit that she’s jolly clever with her fingers.”

“Of course we know that. She’s the smartest woman in London. But what makes you think that when the suggestion is made to her she will refuse?”

“Well, just this. She’s uncommonly good-looking, dresses with exquisite taste, and when occasion demands can assume the manner of a high-born lady, which is, of course, just what we want; but of late I’ve noticed a very great change in her. She used to act heedless of risk, and entirely without pity or compunction. Nowadays, however, she seems becoming chicken-hearted.”

“Perhaps she’s in love,” remarked the other with a sarcastic grin.

“That’s just it. I honestly think that she really is in love,” said the short, hard-faced, clean-shaven man of fifty, whose fair, rather scanty hair, reddish face, tightly-cut trousers, and check-tweed suit gave him a distinctly horsey appearance, as he seated himself upon the edge of the table in the shabby sitting-room au troisième above the noisy Rue Lafayette, in Paris.

”‘The Ladybird’ in love! Whatever next!” ejaculated Guy Bourne, a man some ten years his junior, and extremely well, even rather foppishly, dressed. His features were handsome, his hair dark, and outwardly he had all the appearance of a well-set-up Englishman. His gold sleeve-links bore a crest and cipher in blue enamel, and his dark moustache was carefully trained, for he was essentially a man of taste and refinement. “Well,” he added, “I’ve got my own opinion, old chap, and you’re quite welcome to yours. ‘The Ladybird’ may be in love, as you suspect, but she’ll have to help us in this. It’s a big thing, I know; but look what it means to us! If she’s in love, who’s the jay?” he asked, lighting a cigarette carelessly.

“Ah! now you ask me a question.”

“Well,” declared Bourne rather anxiously, “whoever he may be, the acquaintanceship must be broken off – and that very quickly, too. For us the very worst catastrophe would be for our little ‘Ladybird’ to fall in love. She might, in one of her moments of sentimentality, be indiscreet, as all women are apt to be; and if so – well, it would be all up with us. You quite recognise the danger?”

“I do, most certainly,” the other replied, with a serious look, as he glanced around the poorly-furnished room, with its painted wood floor in lieu of carpet. “As soon as we’re back we must keep our eyes upon her, and ascertain the identity of this secret lover.”

“But she’s never shown any spark of affection before,” Bourne said, although he knew that the secret lover was actually himself. “We must ask Roddy all about it. Being her father, he may know something.”

“I only wish we were back in London again, sonny,” declared Kinder. “Paris has never been safe for us since that wretched affair in the Boulevard Magenta. Why Roddy brought us over I can’t think.”

“He had his eye on something big that unfortunately hasn’t come off. Therefore we’re now landed at the Grand with a big hotel bill and no money to pay it with. The Johnnie in the bureau presented it to me this morning, and asked for payment. I bluffed him that I was going down to the bank and would settle it this evening.”

“With twenty-seven and sixpence!” remarked the clean-shaven man with sarcasm.

“Yes,” responded his companion grimly. “I only wish we could get our traps away. I’ve got all my new rig-out in my trunk, and can’t afford to lose it.”

“We must get back to London somehow,” Harry said decisively. “Every moment we remain here increases our peril. They have our photographs at the Prefecture, remember, and here the police are pretty quick at making an arrest. We’re wanted, even now, for the Boulevard Magenta affair. A pity the Doctor hit the poor old chap so hard, wasn’t it?”

“A thousand pities. But the Doctor was always erratic – always in fear of too much noise being made. He knocked the old fellow down when there was really no necessity: a towel twisted around his mouth would have been quite as effectual, and the affair would not have assumed so ugly a phase as it afterwards did. No; you’re quite right, Harry, old chap; Paris is no place for us nowadays.”

“Ah!” Kinder sighed regretfully. “And yet we’ve had jolly good times here, haven’t we? And we’ve brought off some big things once or twice, until Latour and his cadaverous crowd became jealous of us, and gave us away that morning at the St. Lazare station, just when Roddy was working the confidence of those two American women. By Jove! we all had a narrow escape, and had to fly.”

“I remember. Two agents pounced upon me, but I managed to give them the slip and get away that night to Amiens. A good job for us,” the younger man added, “that Latour won’t have a chance to betray his friends for another fifteen years.”

“What! has he been lagged?” asked the horsey man as he bit the end off a cigar.

“Yes, for a nasty affair down at Marseilles. He was opening a banker’s safe – that was his speciality, you know – and he blundered.”

“Then I’m not sorry for him,” Kinder declared, crossing the room and looking out of the window into the busy thoroughfare below.

It was noon, on a bright May day, and the traffic over the granite setts in the Rue Lafayette was deafening, the huge steam trams snorting and clanging as they ascended the hill to the Gare du Nord.

Guy Bourne was endeavouring to solve a very serious financial difficulty. The three shabbily-furnished rooms in which they were was a small apartment which Roddy Redmayne, alias “The Mute,” alias Ward, alias Scott-Martin, and alias a dozen other names beside, had taken for a month, and were, truth to tell, the temporary headquarters of “The Mute’s” clever and daring gang of international thieves, who moved from city to city plying their profession.

They had been unlucky – as they were sometimes. Harry Kinder had succeeded in getting some jewellery two days before, only to discover to his chagrin that the diamonds were paste. He had seen them in a bad light, otherwise, expert that he was, he would never have touched them. He always left pearls religiously alone. There were far too many imitations, he declared. For three weeks the men had done themselves well in Paris, and spent a considerable amount in ingratiating themselves with certain English and American visitors who were there for the season. Kinder and Bourne worked the big hotels – the Grand, the Continental, and the Chatham, generally frequenting the American bar at the latter place each afternoon about four o’clock, on the keen lookout for English pigeons to pluck. This season, however, ill-luck seemed to constantly follow them, with the result that they had spent their money all to no purpose, and now found themselves with a large hotel bill, and without the wherewithal to discharge it.

Guy Bourne’s life had been a veritable romance. The son of a wealthy country squire, he had been at Eton and at Balliol, and his father had intended him to enter the Church, for he had an uncle a bishop, and was sure of a decent preferment. A clerical career had, however, no attractions for Guy, who loved all kinds of sport, especially racing, a pastime which eventually proved his downfall. Like many other young men, he became mixed up with a very undesirable set – that unscrupulous company that frequents racecourses – and finding his father’s door shut to him, gradually sank lower until he became the friend of Kinder and one of the associates and accomplices of the notorious Roddy Redmayne – known as “The Mute” – a king among Continental thieves.

Like the elder man who stood beside him, he was an audacious, quick-witted, and ingenious thief, very merry and easy-going. He was a man who lived an adventurous life, and generally lived well, too; unscrupulous about annexing other people’s property, and therefore retaining nowadays few of the traits of the gentleman. At first he had not been altogether bad; at heart he hated and despised himself; yet he was a fatalist, and had long ago declared that the life of a thief was his destiny, and that it was no use kicking against the pricks.

An excellent linguist, a well-set-up figure, a handsome countenance, his hair slightly turning grey, he was always witty, debonair and cosmopolitan, and a great favourite with women. They voted him a charming fellow, never for one moment suspecting that his polished exterior and gentlemanly bearing concealed the fact that he had designs upon their jewellery.

His companion, Harry Kinder, was a man of entirely different stamp; rather coarse, muscular, well versed in all the trickery and subterfuge of the international criminal; a clever pickpocket, and perhaps one of the most ingenious sharpers in all Europe. He had followed the profession ever since a lad; had seen the interior of a dozen different prisons in as many countries; and invariably showed fight if detected. Indeed, Harry Kinder was a “tough customer,” as many agents of police had discovered to their cost.

“Then you really don’t think ‘the Ladybird’ will have anything to do with the affair?” Guy remarked at last, standing beside him and gazing aimlessly out of the window.

“I fear she won’t. If you can persuade her, then it’ll all be plain sailing. They’ll help us, and the risk won’t be very much. Yet after all it’s a dirty trick to play, isn’t it?”

His companion shrugged his shoulders, saying, “Roddy sees no harm in it, and we must live the same as other people. We simply give our services for a stated sum.”

“Well,” declared Kinder, “I’ve never drawn back from any open and straightforward bit of business where it was our wits against another’s, or where the victim is a fool or inexperienced; but I tell you that I draw a line at entrapping an innocent woman, and especially an English lady.”

“What!” cried Bourne. “You’ve become conscientious all at once! Do you intend to back out of it altogether?”

“I’ve not yet decided what I shall do. The only thing is that I shall not persuade ‘the Ladybird’ either way. I shall leave her entirely in Roddy’s hands.”

“Then you’d better tell Roddy plainly when he comes back. Perhaps you’re in love, just as you say ‘the Ladybird’ is!”

“Love! Why, my dear Guy – love at my age! I was only in love once – when I was seventeen. She sat in a kind of fowl-pen and sold stamps in a grocer’s shop at Hackney. Since then I can safely say that I’ve never made a fool of myself over a woman. They are charming all, from seventeen to seventy, but there is not one I’ve singled out as better than the rest.”

“Ah, Harry!” declared Guy with a smile, “you’re a queer fellow. You are essentially a lady’s man, and yet you never fall in love. We all thought once that you were fond of ‘the Ladybird.’”

”‘The Ladybird!’” laughed the elder man. “Well, what next? No. ‘The Ladybird’ has got a lover in secret somewhere, depend upon it. Perhaps it is yourself. We shall get at the truth when we return to town.”

“When? Do you contemplate leaving your things at the Grand, my dear fellow? We can’t. We must get money from somewhere – money, and to-day. Why not try some of the omnibuses, or the crowd at one of the railway stations? We might work together this afternoon and try our luck,” Guy suggested.

“Better the Café Américain, or Maxim’s to-night,” declared Kinder, who knew his Paris well. “There’s more money there, and we’re bound to pick up a jay or two.”

At that moment the sharp click of a key in the lock of the outer door caused them to pause, and a moment later they were joined by an elderly, grey-haired, gentlemanly-looking man in travelling-ulster and grey felt hat, who carried a small brown kit-bag which, by its hotel labels, showed sign of long travel.

“Hulloa, Roddy!” Kinder cried excitedly in his Cockney dialect. “Luck, I see! What have you got?”

“Don’t know yet,” was the newcomer’s reply, his intonation also that of a born Londoner. “I got it from a young woman who arrived by the rapide at the Gare de l’Est.” And throwing off his travelling get-up he placed the kit-bag upon the table. Then touching a spring in the lock he lifted it again, and there remained upon the table a lady’s dressing-bag with a black waterproof cover.

“Looks like something good,” declared Guy, watching eagerly.

The innocent-looking kit-bag was one of those specially constructed for the use of thieves. The bottom was hinged, with double flaps opening inward. The interior contained sharp iron grips, so that the bag, when placed upon any object smaller than it, would cover it entirely, the flaps forming the bottom opening inward, while the grips, descending, held the bag or other object tight. So the kit-bag, when removed, would also remove the object concealed within it.

Roddy, a grey-faced, cool, crafty old fellow of sixty, bore such a serious expression that one might readily have taken him for a dissenting minister or a respectable surgeon. He carefully took off the outer cover of the crocodile-skin dressing-case, examined its gilt lock, and then, taking from his pocket a piece of steel about six inches long, with a pointed end, almost a miniature of a burglar’s jemmy, he quickly prised it open.

The trio eagerly looked within, and saw that it was an elegantly-fitted bag, with gold-topped bottles, and below some miscellaneous articles and letters lay a small, cheap leather bag.

In a moment the wily old thief had it open, and next instant there was displayed a magnificent bodice ornament in diamonds, a pair of exquisite pearl earrings, several fine bracelets, a long rope of splendid pearls, a fine ruby brooch, and a quantity of other ornaments.

“Excellent!” exclaimed Guy. “We’re on our feet once more! Well done, Roddy, old man! We were just thinking that we’d have to pick the pockets of some poor wretches if things didn’t change, and I never like doing that.”

“No,” remarked the leader of the gang, critically examining one after another of the articles he had stolen. “I wonder to whom these belong?” he added. “They’re uncommonly good stuff, at any rate. Ascertain what those letters say.”

Guy took up the letters and glanced at the superscriptions upon the envelopes.

“By Heaven!” he gasped next instant, and crushing the letters in his hand stood staring at the open bag. “What infernal irony of Fate is this? What curse is there upon us now? Look! They are hers – hers! And we have taken them!”

The three men exchanged glances, but no word was uttered.

The startling truth held Guy Bourne speechless, staggered, stupefied.

Chapter One

Concerns a Court Intrigue

The bright moon shed a white light over the great, silent courtyards of the Imperial palace at Vienna.

A bugle had just sounded, the guards had changed with a sudden clang of arms that rang out in the clear night, followed by the sound of men marching back to the guardhouse. A sharp word of command, a second bugle note, and then all was quiet again, save for the slow, measured tread of the sentries at each angle of the ponderous palace.

From without all looked grim and gloomy, in keeping with that strange fate that follows the hapless Hapsbourgs; yet beyond those black walls, in the farther wing of the Imperial palace were life and gaiety and music; indeed there was presented perhaps the most magnificent scene in all Europe.

The first Court ball of the season was at its height, and the aged Emperor Francis-Joseph was himself present – a striking figure in his uniform and orders.

Filled with the most brilliant patrician crowd in all the world – the women in tiaras and blazing with jewels, and the men in Court dress or in gorgeous uniforms – the huge ballroom, with its enormous crystal electroliers and its gold – and – white Renaissance decorations, had never been the scene of a more dazzling display. Archdukes and archduchesses, princes and princesses, nobles and diplomatists, ministers of the empire and high functionaries of State danced or gossiped, intrigued or talked scandal; or those whose first ball it was worried themselves over points of etiquette that are always so puzzling to one not born in the Court atmosphere.

The music, the scent of the flowers, the glare and glitter, the beauty of the high-born women, the easy swagger of the bestarred and beribboned men, combined to produce a scene almost fairy-like.

Laughter rang from pretty lips, and men bent to whisper into the ears of their partners as they waltzed over the perfect floor, after having paid homage to their Emperor – that lonely, broken man whose good wife, alas! had fallen beneath the assassin’s knife.

A sovereign’s heart may be broken, but he must nevertheless keep up a brave show before his subjects.

So he stood at the end of the room with the Imperial circle about him, smiling upon them and receiving their homage, although he longed to be back in his own quiet room at the farther end of the palace, where their laughter and the strains of music could not reach his ears.

One pale, sweet-faced woman in that gay, irresponsible crowd glanced at him and read his heart.

Her fair beauty was extremely striking, and her neat-waisted figure perfect. Indeed, she had long ago been acknowledged to be the most lovely figure at the Austrian Court – the most brilliant Court of Europe – a countenance which even her wide circle of enemies could not criticise without showing their ill-nature; a perfect countenance, which, though it bore the hallmark of her imperial birth as an Archduchess, yet was sweet, dimpled, and innocent as a child’s.

The Princess Claire – Cecille-Marie-Alexandrine was twenty-four. Born and bred at that Court, she had three years before been married to the Crown Prince of a German house, the royal house of Marburg, and had left it for the Court at Treysa, over which her husband would, by reason of his father’s great age, very soon be sovereign.

At that moment she was back in Vienna on a brief visit to her father, the Archduke Charles, and had taken a turn around the room with a smart, well-set-up man in cavalry uniform – her cousin Prince George of Anhalt. She was dressed in ivory white, wearing in her fair hair a wonderful tiara; while in the edge of her low-cut bodice there showed the crosses and ribbons of the Orders of St. Elizabeth and Teresa – decorations bestowed only upon Imperial princesses.

Many eyes were turned upon her, and many of the friends of her girlhood days she saluted with that charming frankness of manner which was so characteristic of her open nature. Suddenly, while walking around the room, a clean-shaven, dark-haired, quick-eyed man of thirty in Court dress bowed low before her, and in an instant, recognising him, she left her cousin’s side, and crossing spoke to him.

“I must see your Imperial Highness before she leaves Vienna,” he whispered quickly to her in English, after she had greeted him in German and inquired after his wife. “I have something private and important to tell you.”

The Crown Princess looked at him quickly, and recognised that the man was in earnest. Her curiosity became aroused; but she could ask no questions, for a hundred eyes were now upon her.

“Make an appointment – quickly, your Highness. I am here expressly to see you,” he said, noticing that Prince George was approaching to carry her off to the upper end of the room, where the members of the Imperial family were assembled.

“Very well. In the Stadtpark, against the Caroline Bridge, at eight to-morrow night. It will be dark then.”

“Be careful that you are not followed,” he whispered; and then he bowed deeply as she left him.

When her cousin came up he said, —

“You are very foolish, Claire! You know how greatly such a breach of etiquette annoys the Emperor. Why do you speak with such people?”

“Because I like to,” she answered defiantly. “If I have the misfortune to be born an Imperial Archduchess and am now Crown Princess, it need surely not preclude me from speaking to people who are my friends?”

“Oh, he is a friend, is he? Who is the fellow?” inquired the Prince, raising his eyebrows.

“Steinbach. He is in our Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

“You really possess some queer friends, Claire,” the young man said, smiling. “They will suspect you of being a Socialist if you go on in this way. You always shock them each time you come back to Vienna because of your extraordinary unconventionality.”

“Do I?” she laughed. “Well, I’m sure I don’t care. When I lived here before I married they were for ever being scandalised by my conduct in speaking to people. But why shouldn’t I? I learn so much them. We are all too narrow-minded; we very little of the world beyond the palace walls.”

“I heard yesterday that you’d been seen walking in the Kamthnerstrasse with two women who were not of the nobility. You really oughtn’t to do that. It isn’t fair to us, you know,” he said, twisting his moustache. “We all know how wilful you are, and how you love to scandalise us; but you should draw the line at displaying such socialistic tendencies openly and publicly.”

“My dear old George,” she laughed, turning her bright eyes to him, “you’re only my cousin and not my husband. I shall do exactly what I like. If it amuses and interests me to see the life of the people, I shall do so; therefore it’s no use talking. I have had lots of lectures from the Emperor long ago, and also from my stiff old father-in-law the King. But when they lecture me I only do it all the more,” she declared, with a mischievous laugh upon her sweet face. “So they’ve given me up.”

“You’re incorrigible, Claire – absolutely incorrigible,” her cousin declared as he swung along at her side. “I only do hope that your unconventionality will not be taken advantage of by your jealous enemies. Remember, you are the prettiest woman at our Court as well as at your own. Before long, too, you will be a reigning queen; therefore reflect well whether this disregard of the first rule of Court etiquette, which forbids a member of the Imperial family to converse with a commoner, is wise. For my own part, I don’t think it is.”

“Oh, don’t lecture me any more for goodness’ sake,” exclaimed the Crown Princess with a little musical laugh. “Have this waltz with me.”

And next moment the handsome pair were on their way down the great room with all eyes turned upon them.

When, ten minutes later, they returned to join the Imperial circle about the Emperor, the latter motioned his niece towards him.

“Come to me when this is ended,” he said in a serious voice. “I wish to talk to you. You will find me in the white room at two o’clock.”