Chapter Nine. The Little Grand Duchess.

In the golden September sunset, the long, wide promenade stretching beside the blue sea from Brighton towards the fashionable suburb of Hove was agog with visitors.

A cloudless sky, a glassy sea flecked by the white sails of pleasure yachts, and ashore a crowd of well-dressed promenaders, the majority of whom were Londoners who, stifled in the dusty streets, were now seeking the fresh sea air of the Channel.

I had dressed leisurely for dinner in the Hotel Métropole, where I had taken up my abode, and about seven o’clock descended the steps, and, crossing the King’s Road to the asphalted promenade, set out to walk westward towards Hove.

Many things had happened since that well-remembered afternoon in July when Natalia had discovered the clever theft of Madame de Rosen’s letters, and I had, an hour later, ill though I was, sent to His Majesty that single word “Bathildis” and was granted immediate audience.

When I told him the facts he appeared interested, paced the room, and then snapped his fingers with a careless gesture. The little madcap had certainly annoyed him greatly, and though feigning indifference, he nevertheless appeared perplexed.

Natalia was called at once and questioned closely; she was the soul of honour and would reveal nothing of the secret. Afterwards I returned to the Embassy and summoned Hartwig, to inform him of the Grand Duchess’s loss. The renowned police official had since made diligent inquiry; indeed, the whole complicated machinery of the Russian criminal police had been put into motion, but all to no avail.

The theft was still an entire mystery.

As I approached the Lawns at Hove, those wide, grassy promenades beside the sea, I saw that many people were still lingering, enjoying the warm sunset, although the fashionable hour when women exercise their pet dogs, and idle men lounge and watch the crowd, had passed and the band had finished its performance.

My mind was filled by many serious apprehensions, as turning suddenly from the Lawns, I recrossed the road and entered Brunswick Square, that wide quadrangle of big, old-fashioned houses around a large railed-in garden filled with high oaks and beeches.

Before a drab, newly-painted house with a basement and art-green blinds, I halted, ascended the steps and rang.

A white-whiskered old manservant in funereal black bowed as I entered, and, casting off my overcoat, I followed the old fellow past a man who was seated demurely in the hall, to whom I nodded, and up thickly-carpeted stairs to the big white-enamelled drawing-room, where Natalia sprang up from a couch of daffodil silk and came forward to meet me with glad welcome and outstretched hand.

“Well, Uncle Colin!” she cried, “wherever have you been? I called for you at the ‘Métropole’ the day before yesterday, and your superb hall-porter told me that you were in London!”

“Yes. I had to go up there on some urgent business,” I said. “I only returned to-day at five o’clock and received your kind invitation to dine,” and then, turning, I greeted Miss West, the rather thin, elderly woman who for years had acted as English governess to Her Imperial Highness—or Miss Gottorp, as she was now known at Hove. Miss West had been governess in the Emperor’s family for six years before she had entered the service of the Grand Duchess Nicholas, so life at Court, with all its stiff etiquette, had perhaps imparted to her a slightly unnatural hauteur.

Natalia looked inexpressibly sweet in an evening gown of fine black spotted net, the transparency of which about the chest heightened the almost alabaster whiteness of her skin. She wore a black aigrette in her hair, but no jewellery save a single diamond bangle upon her wrist, an ornament which she always wore.

“Sit down and tell me all the news,” she urged, throwing herself into an armchair and patting a cushion near by as indication where I should sit.

“There is no news,” I said. “This morning I was at the Embassy, and they were naturally filled with curiosity regarding you—a curiosity which I did not satisfy.”

“Young Isvolski is there, isn’t he?” she asked. “He used to be attached to my poor father’s suite.”

“Yes,” I replied. “He’s third secretary. He wanted to know whether you had police protection, and I told him they had sent you another agent from Petersburg. I suppose it is that melancholy man I’ve just seen sitting in the hall?”

“Yes. Isn’t it horrid? He sits there all day long and never moves,” Miss West exclaimed. “It is as though the bailiffs are in the house.”

“Bailiffs?” repeated the girl. “What are they?” I explained to her, whereupon she laughed heartily. “Hartwig is due in Brighton to-night or to-morrow morning,” I said. “I have received a telegram from him, despatched from Berlin early yesterday morning. But,” I added, “I trust that you are finding benefit from the change.”

“I am,” she assured me. “I love this place. I feel so free and so happy here. Miss West and I go for walks and drives every day, and though a lot of people stare at me very hard, I don’t think they know who I am. I hope not.”

“They admire your Highness’s good looks,” I ventured to remark. But she made a quick gesture of impatience, and declared that I only intended sarcasm.

“I suppose Miss West, that all the men turn to look at Her Highness?” I said. “Englishmen at the seaside during the summer are always impressionable, so they must be forgiven.”

“You are quite right, Mr Trewinnard. It is really something dreadful. Only to-day a young man—quite a respectable young fellow, who was probably a clerk in the City—followed us the whole length of the promenade to the West Pier and kept looking into her Highness’s face.”

“He was really a very nice-looking boy,” the girl declared mischievously. “If I’d been alone he would have spoken to me. And, oh, I’d have had such ripping fun.”

“No doubt you would,” I said. “But you know the rule. You are never upon any pretext to go out alone. Besides, you are always under the observation of a police-agent. You would scarcely care to do any love-making before him, would you?”

“Why not? Those persons are not men—they’re only machines,” she declared. “The Emperor told me that long ago.”

“Well, take my advice,” I urged with a laugh, “and don’t attempt it.”

“Oh, of course, Uncle Colin; you’re simply dreadful. You’re a perfect Saint Anthony. It’s too jolly bad,” she declared.

“Yes. Perhaps I might be a Saint Anthony where you are concerned. Still, you must not become a temptress,” I laughed, when at that moment, old Igor, the butler, entered to announce that dinner was served.

So we descended the stairs to the big dining-room, where the table at which she took the head was prettily decorated with Marshal Neil roses, and, a merry trio, we ate our meal amid much good-humoured banter and general laughter.

As she sat beneath the pink-shaded electric lamp suspended over the table, I thought I had never seen her looking so inexpressibly charming. Little wonder, indeed, that young City men down for a fortnight’s leisure at the seaside, the annual relaxation from their weary work-a-day world of office and suburban railway, looked upon her in admiration and followed her in order to feast their eyes upon her marvellous beauty. What would they have thought, had they but known that the girl so quietly and well-dressed in black was of the bluest blood of Europe, a daughter of the Imperial Romanoffs.

That big, old-fashioned house which I had arranged for her six weeks ago belonged to the widow of a brewery baronet, a man who had made a great fortune out of mild dinner-ale. The somewhat beefy lady—once a domestic servant—had gone on a voyage around the world and had been pleased to let it furnished for a year. With her consent I had had the whole place repainted and decorated, had caused new carpets to be provided, and in some instances the rooms had been refurnished in modern style, while four of the servants, including Igor, the butler, and Davey, Her Highness’s maid, had been brought from her father’s palace beside the Neva.

For a girl not yet nineteen it was, indeed, quite a unique establishment. Miss West acting as chaperone, companion and housekeeper.

Seated at the head of the table, the little Grand Duchess did the honours as, indeed, she had so often done them at the great table in that magnificent salon in Petersburg, for being the only child, it had very often fallen to her lot to help her father to entertain, her mother having died a month after her birth.

Dinner over, the ladies rose and left, while I sat to smoke my cigarette alone. Outside in the hall the undersized, insignificant little man in black sat upon a chair reading the evening paper, and as old Igor poured out my glass of port I asked him in French how he liked England.

“Ah! m’sieur,” he exclaimed in his thin, squeaky voice. “Truly it is most beautiful. We are all so well here—so much better than in Petersburg. Years ago I went to London with my poor master, the Grand Duke. We stayed at Claridge’s. M’sieur knows the place—eh?”

“Of course,” I said. “But tell me, Igor, since you’ve been in Brighton—over a month now—have you ever met, or seen, anybody you know? I mean anyone you have seen before in Petersburg?”

I was anxious to learn whether young Hamborough, Paul Urusoff, or any of the rest, had been in the vicinity.

The old fellow reflected a few moments. Then he replied:

“Of course I saw M’sieur Hartwig three weeks ago. Also His Excellency the Ambassador when he came down from London to pay his respects to Her Imperial Highness.”

“Nobody else?” I asked, looking seriously into his grey old face, my wine-glass poised in my hand.

“Ah, yes! One evening, three or four days ago, I was walking along King’s Road, towards Ship Street, when I passed a tall, thin, clean-shaven man in brown, whose face was quite familiar. I know that I’ve seen him many times in Petersburg, but I cannot recall who or what he is. He looked inquisitively at me for a moment, and apparently recognising me, passed on and then hurriedly crossed the road.”

“Was he a gentleman?” I asked with curiosity.

“He was dressed like one, M’sieur. He had on a dark grey Homburg hat and a fashionable dark brown suit.”

“You only saw him on that one occasion?”

“Only that once. When I returned home I told Dmitri, the police-agent, and described him. You don’t anticipate that he is here with any evil purpose, I suppose?” he added quickly.

“I can’t tell, Igor. I don’t know him. But if I were you I would not mention it to her Highness. She’s only a girl, remember, and her nerves have been greatly shaken by that terrible tragedy.”

“Rely upon me. I shall say no word, M’sieur,” he promised.

Then I rose and ascended to the drawing-room, where Natalia was seated alone.

“Miss West will be here in a few minutes,” she said. “Tell me, Uncle Colin, what have you been doing while you’ve been away—eh?”

“I had some business in London, and afterwards went on a flying visit to see my mother down in Cornwall,” I said.

“Ah! How is she? I hope you told her to come and see me. I would be so very delighted if she will come and stay a week or so.”

“I gave her Your Highness’s kind message, and she is writing to thank you. She’ll be most delighted to visit you,” I said.

“Nothing has been discovered regarding Madame de Rosen’s letters, I suppose?” she asked with a sigh, her face suddenly grown grave.

“Hartwig arrives to-night, or to-morrow,” I replied. “We shall then know what has transpired. From his Majesty he received explicit instructions to spare no effort to solve the mystery of the theft.”

“I know. He told me so when he was here three weeks ago. He has made every effort. Of all the police administration I consider Hartwig the most honest and straightforward.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “He is alert always, marvellously astute, and, above all, though he has had such an extraordinary career, he is an Englishman.”

“So I have lately heard,” replied my pretty companion. “I know he will do his best on my behalf, because I feel that I have lost the one piece of evidence which might have restored poor Marya de Rosen and her daughter to liberty.”

“You have lost the letters, it is true,” I said, looking into her splendid eyes. “You have lost them because it was plainly in the interests of General Markoff, the Tzar’s favourite, that they should be lost. Madame de Rosen herself feared lest they should be stolen, and yet a few days later she and Luba were spirited away to the Unknown. Search was, no doubt, made at her house for that incriminating correspondence. It could not be found; but, alas! you let out the secret when sitting out with me at the Court ball. Somebody must have overheard. Your father’s palace was searched very thoroughly, and the packet at last found.”

“The Emperor appeared to be most concerned about it before I left Russia. When I last saw him at Tzarskoie-Selo he seemed very pale, agitated and upset.”

“Yes,” I said. Then, very slowly, for I confess I was much perturbed, knowing how we were at that moment hemmed in by our enemies, I added: “This theft conveyed more to His Majesty than at present appears to your Highness. It is a startling coup of those opposed to the monarchy—the confirmation of a suspicion which the Emperor believed to be his—and his alone.”

“A suspicion!” she exclaimed. “What suspicion? Tell me.”

Next moment Miss West, thin-faced and rather angular, entered the room, and we dropped our confidences. Then, at my invitation, my dainty little hostess went to the piano, and running her white fingers over the keys, commenced to sing in her clear, well-trained contralto “L’Heure Exquise” of Paul Verlaine:

La lune blanche
    Luit dans les bois;
De chaque branche
    Part une voix
Sous la ramée...
    O bien-aimée.