In the preceding autumn I completed my first novel. I carried it
around to publishers till I grew to hate it as one hates a Nemesis, and
when finally I did place it, it was with a publisher who had just
started in business and was necessarily obscure. I bowed politely to
my dreams of literary fame and became wholly absorbed in my
journalistic work. When the book came out I could not but admire the
excellence of the bookmaking, but as I looked through the reviews and
found no mention save in "books received," I threw the book aside and
vowed that it should be my last. The publisher wrote me that he was
surprised that the book had not caught on, as he considered the story
unusually clever. "Merit is one thing," he said, "but luck is
another." I have found this to be true, not only in literature, but in
all walks of life where fame and money are the goals. Phyllis wrote me
that she thought the book "just splendid"; but I took her praise with a
grain of salt, it being likely that she was partial to the author, and
that the real worth of the book was little in comparison with the fact
that it was I who wrote it.

One morning in early June I found three letters on my desk. The first
was from Hillars. He was in Vienna.


"MY DEAR SON," it ran, "there is another rumpus. The Princess
disappeared on the 20th of last month. They are hunting high and low
for her, and incidentally for me. Why me, is more than I can
understand. But I received a letter from Rockwell of the American
Legation warning me that if I remained in Austria I should be
apprehended, put in jail, hanged and quartered for no other reason on
earth than that they suspect me having something to do with her
disappearance. Due, I suppose, to that other miserable affair. Though