I gasped, astounded.
"Yes, Count. And, further, my mistress is in high glee, for my master returned this morning quite unexpectedly from London. He has been out at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs all the evening, and I expect him home at any moment. The Crown-Prince ordered me to ask you to await him here."
Count von Leutenberg in Berlin! What did it mean? He was absurdly jealous, I recollected. He might return at any moment and find the Crown-Prince alone in the Countess's drawing-room. If so, the situation might certainly be a most unpleasant one.
Hardly had the thought crossed my mind when I heard the Count enter, his spurs clinking and his sabre rattling as he strode up the stairs.
I crept forth, listening breathlessly.
A few seconds later I heard the Count's voice raised in anger and high, bitter words. Next moment I sprang up the stairs and, dashing into the room, found the pretty Countess standing near the window, white and rigid as a statue, while the two men in uniform faced each other. Von Leutenberg's countenance was distorted with rage as he abused the Crown-Prince, and openly charged him with having brought about his exile to London.
His Highness made no reply, but only smiled sarcastically and shrugged his narrow shoulders.
So enraged the other became at this latter gesture that, with a sudden movement, he drew his sword.
The Countess shrieked and swooned as I sprang forward and stayed her husband's hand.
It was a dramatic moment. The Count instantly realized the enormity of his crime, and his hand dropped.
"Enough!" cried the Crown-Prince, waving his adversary aside. Then, turning to me, he said in a calm, hard voice:
"Heltzendorff, you are witness that this man has drawn his sword upon the heir to the Throne."
And with those haughty words he bowed stiffly and strode out of the room.
Two hours later I was commanded to the Kaiser's presence, and found him in counsel with his son.
The Emperor, who wore the uniform of the Guards, looked pale and troubled, yet in his eyes there was a keen, determined look. As I passed the sentries and entered the lofty study, with its upholstery and walls of pale green damask – that room from which the Empire and the whole world have so often been addressed – the Kaiser broke off short in his conversation.
Turning to me as he still sat at his littered table, he said in that quick, impetuous way of his:
"Count Heltzendorff, the Crown-Prince has informed me of what has occurred this evening in the Lennestrasse. I wish you to convey this at once to Count von Leutenberg and to give it into his own hand. There is no reply."
And His Majesty handed me a rather bulky envelope addressed in his own bold handwriting, and bearing his own private cipher impressed in black wax.
Thus commanded, I bowed, withdrew, and took a taxicab straight to the Lennestrasse, being ushered by Josef into the presence of husband and wife in that same room I had quitted a couple of hours before.
I handed the Count the packet the Emperor had given me, and with trembling fingers he tore it open.
From within he drew three letters, those same letters which his wife had written to London, and which had been intercepted by the Secret Service – the letters which I had read in his Highness's room.
As he scanned the lines which the Emperor had penned his face blanched. A loud cry of dismay escaped his wife as she recognized her own letters, and she snatched the note from her husband's hand and also read it.
The light died instantly from her beautiful countenance. Then, turning to me, she said in a hoarse, hopeless tone:
"Thank you, Count von Heltzendorff. Tell His Majesty the Emperor that his command shall be – yes, it shall be obeyed."
Those last words she spoke in a deep, hoarse whisper, a strange, wild look of desperation in her blue eyes.
An hour later I reported again at the Imperial Palace, was granted audience of the Emperor, and gave him the verbal reply.
His Majesty uttered no word, merely nodding his head slowly in approval.
Next afternoon a painful sensation was caused throughout Berlin when the Abendpost published the news that Count von Leutenberg, the man so recently promoted by the Emperor, and his pretty wife had both been found dead in their room. During the night they had evidently burned some papers, for the tinder was found in the stove, and having agreed to die together, they being so much attached during life, they had both taken prussic acid in some wine, the bottle and half-emptied glasses being still upon the table.
The romantic affair, the truth of which I here reveal for the first time, was regarded by all Berlin as an inexplicable tragedy. The public are still unaware of how those intercepted letters contained serious warnings to the British Government of the Emperor's hostile intentions towards Britain, and the probable date of the outbreak of war. Indeed, they recounted a private conversation which the Countess had overheard between the Kaiser and Count Zeppelin, repeating certain opprobrious epithets which the All-Highest had bestowed upon one or two British statesmen, and she also pointed out the great danger of a pending rupture between the two Powers, as well as explaining some details regarding the improved Zeppelins in course of construction secretly on Lake Constance, and certain scandals regarding the private life of the Crown-Prince.
It was for the latter reason that the heir, aided by the War-Lord, took his revenge in a manner so crafty, so subtle, and so typical of the innate cunning of the Hohenzollerns.
Thus the well-meant warnings of one of your good, honest Englishwomen never reached the unsuspicious address to which they were sent, and thus did "Willie" – who, as I afterwards discovered, devised that subtle vengeance – act as the Emperor's catspaw.
SECRET NUMBER TWO
THE CROWN-PRINCE'S REVENGE
The Trautmann affair was one which caused a wild sensation at Potsdam in the autumn of 1912.
In the Emperor's immediate entourage there was a great deal of gossip, most of it ill-natured and cruel, for most ladies-in-waiting possess serpents' tongues. Their tongues are as sharp as their features, and though there may be a few pretty maids-of-honour, yet the majority of women at Court are, as you know, my dear Le Queux, mostly plain and uninteresting.
I became implicated in the unsavoury Trautmann affair, in a somewhat curious manner.
A few months after the Leutenberg tragedy I chanced to be lunching at the "Esplanade" in Berlin, chatting with Laroque, of the French Embassy. Our hostess was Frau Breitenbach, a wealthy Jewess – a woman who came from Dortmund – and who was spending money like water in order to wriggle into Berlin society. As personal-adjutant of the Crown-Prince I was, of course, one of the principal guests, and I suspected that she was angling for a card of invitation to the next ball at the Marmor Palace.
Who introduced me to the portly, black-haired, rather handsome woman I quite forget. Probably it was some nobody who received a commission upon the introduction – for at the Berlin Court introductions are bought and sold just as the succulent sausage is sold over the counter.
In the big white-and-gold salle-à-manger of the "Esplanade," which, as you know, is one of the finest in Europe, Frau Breitenbach was lunching with sixteen guests at one big round table, her daughter Elise, a very
