'Sit down,' she said abruptly, 'and tell me everything; mind,
everything. I adore secrets.'

Almost before he knew it he was talking to her, rapidly, eagerly.

'Why should I weary you with my confidences?' he said. 'I don't
know, I cannot tell; but I feel that I must. I feel that you will
understand me better than anyone else in the world. And yet why
should you understand me? Again, I don't know. Miss Racksole, I
will disclose to you the whole trouble in a word. Prince Eugen, the
hereditary Grand Duke of Posen, has disappeared. Four days ago I
was to have met him at Ostend. He had affairs in London. He
wished me to come with him. I sent Dimmock on in front, and
waited for Eugen. He did not arrive. I telegraphed back to
Cologne, his last stopping-place, and I learned that he had left
there in accordance with his programme; I leamed also that he had
passed through Brussels. It must have been between Brussels and
the railway station at Ostend Quay that he disappeared. He was
travelling with a single equerry, and the equerry, too, has vanished.
I need not explain to you, Miss Racksole, that when a person of the
importance of my nephew contrives to get lost one must proceed
cautiously. One cannot advertise for him in the London Times.
Such a disappearance must be kept secret. The people at Posen and
at Berlin believe that Eugen is in London, here, at this hotel; or,
rather, they did so believe. But this morning I received a cypher
telegram from - from His Majesty the Emperor, a very peculiar
telegram, asking when Eugen might be expected to return to
Posen, and requesting that he should go first to Berlin. That
telegram was addressed to myself. Now, if the Emperor thought