CHAPTER XXV. HOBSON’S CHOICE
There were some days when the absence of patients seemed to Dr. Spencer Whiles a thing almost insupportable. Too late he began to realize that he had set up in the wrong neighborhood. In years to come, he reflected gloomily, when the great building estate which was to have been developed more than a year ago was really opened up, there might be an opportunity where he was, a very excellent opportunity, too, for a young doctor of ability. Just now, however, the outlook was almost hopeless. He found himself even looking eagerly forward every day for another visit from Mr. Inspector Jacks. Another trip to town would mean a peep into the world of luxury, whose doors were so closely barred against him, and, what was more important still, it would mean a fee which would keep the wolf from the door for another week. It had come to that with Dr. Whiles. His little stock of savings was exhausted. Unless something turned up within the course of the next few weeks, he knew very well that there was nothing left for him to do but to slip away quietly into the embrace of the more shady parts of the great city, to find a situation somewhere, somehow, beyond the ken of the disappointed creditors whom he would leave behind.
Mr. Inspector Jacks, however, had apparently no further use, for the present at any rate, for his medical friend. On the other hand, Dr. Spencer Whiles was not left wholly to himself. On the fourth day after his visit to London a motor car drew up outside his modest surgery door, and with an excitement which he found it almost impossible to conceal, he saw a plainly dressed young man, evidently a foreigner and, he believed, a Japanese, descend and ring the patients’ bell. The doctor had dismissed his boy a week ago, from sheer inability to pay his modest wages, and he did not hesitate for a moment about opening the door himself. The man outside raised his hat and made him a sweeping bow.
“It is Dr. Spencer Whiles?” he asked.
The doctor admitted the fact and invited his visitor to enter.
“It is here, perhaps,” the latter continued, “that a gentleman who was riding a bicycle and was run into by a motor car, was brought after the accident and treated so skilfully?”
“That is so,” Dr. Whiles admitted. “There was nothing much the matter with him. He had rather a narrow escape.”
“I am that gentleman’s servant,” the visitor continued with a bland smile. “He has sent me down here to see you. The leg which was injured is perfectly well, but there was a pain in the side of which he spoke to you, which has not disappeared. This morning, in fact, it is worse,—much worse. My master, therefore, has sent me to you. He begs that if it is not inconvenient you will return with me at once and examine him.”
The doctor drew a little breath. This might mean another week or so of respite!
“Where does your master live?” he asked the man.
“In the West end of London, sir,” was the reply. “The Square of St. James it is called.”
Dr. Whiles glanced at his watch.
“It will take me some time to go there with you,” he said, “and I shall have to arrange with a friend to treat any other patients. Do you think your master will understand that I shall need an increased fee?”
“My master desired me to say,” the other answered, “that he would be prepared to pay any fee you cared to mention. Money is not of account with him. He has not had occasion to seek medical advice in London, and as he is leaving very soon, he did not wish to send for a strange physician. He remembered with gratitude your care of him, and he sends for you.”
“That’s all right,” Dr. Whiles declared, “so long as it’s understood. You’ll excuse me for a moment while I write a note, and I’ll come along.”
Dr. Whiles had no note to write, but he made a few changes in his toilet which somewhat improved his appearance. In due course he reappeared and was rapidly whirled up to London, the sole passenger in the magnificent car. The man who had brought him the message from his quondam patient was sitting in front, next the chauffeur, so Dr. Whiles had no opportunity of asking him for any information concerning his master. Nor did the car itself slacken speed until it drew up before the door of the large corner house in St. James’ Square. A footman in dark livery came running out; a butler bowed upon the steps. Dr. Spencer Whiles was immensely impressed. The servants were all Japanese, but their livery and manners were faultless. He made his way into the hall and followed the butler up the broad stairs.
“My master,” the latter explained, “will receive you very shortly. He is but partly dressed at present.”
Dr. Spencer Whiles came of a family of successful tradespeople, and he was not used to such quiet magnificence as was everywhere displayed. Yet, with it all, there seemed to him to be an air of gloom about the place, something almost mysterious in the silence of the thick carpets, the subdued voices, and the absence of maidservants. The house itself was apparently an old one. He noticed that the doors were very heavy and thick, the corridors roomy, the absence of light almost remarkable. The apartment into which he was shown, however, came as a pleasant surprise. It was small, but delightfully furnished in the most modern fashion. Its only drawback was that it looked out upon a blank wall.
“My master will come to you in a few minutes,” the butler announced. “What refreshments may I have the honor of serving?”
Dr. Whiles waved aside the invitation,—he would at any rate remain professional. The man withdrew, and almost immediately afterwards Prince Maiyo entered the room. The doctor rose to his feet with a little thrill of excitement. The Prince held out his hand.
“I am very pleased to see you again, doctor,” he said. “You looked after me so well last time that I was afraid I should have no excuse for sending for you.”
“I am glad to find that you are not suffering,” the doctor answered. “I understood from your servant that you were feeling a good deal of pain in the side.”
“It troubles me at times,” the Prince admitted, drawing a chair up towards his visitor,—“just sufficiently, perhaps, to give me the excuse of seeking a little conversation with you. You must let me offer you something after your ride.”
“You are very good,” the doctor answered. “Perhaps I had better examine you first.”
The Prince rang the bell and waved aside the suggestion.
“That,” he said, “can wait. In my country, you know, we do not consider that a guest is properly treated unless he partakes of our hospitality the moment he crosses the threshold. The whiskey and soda water,” he ordered of the butler who appeared at the door. “We will talk of my ailments,” the Prince continued, “in a moment or two. Tell me what you thought of that marvellous restaurant where I saw you the other morning?”
The doctor drew a little breath.
“It was you, then!” he exclaimed.
“But naturally,” the Prince murmured. “I took it for granted that you would recognize me.”
The doctor found some difficulty in proceeding. He was trying to imagine the cousin of an Emperor riding a bicycle along a country road, staggering into his surgery at midnight, covered with dust, inarticulate, pointing only to the wounds beneath his cheap clothes!
“Nothing,” the Prince continued easily, “has impressed me more in your country than the splendor of your restaurants. You see, that side of your life represents something we are altogether ignorant of in Japan.”
“It is a very wonderful place,” the doctor admitted. “We had luncheon, my friend and I, in the grillroom, but we came for a few minutes into the foyer to watch the people from the restaurant.”
The Prince nodded genially.
“By the bye,” he remarked, “it is strange that my very good friend—Mr. Inspector Jacks—should also be a friend of yours.”
“He is scarcely that,” the doctor objected. “I have known him for a very short time.”
The Prince raised his eyebrows. The whiskey and soda were brought, and the doctor helped himself. How curiously deficient these Westerners were, the Prince thought, in every instinct of duplicity! As clearly as possible the doctor had revealed the fact that his acquaintance with Inspector Jacks was of precisely that nature which might have been expected.
The Prince sighed. There was but one course open to him.
“Now, Dr. Whiles,” he said, “I will tell you something. You must listen to me very carefully, please. I sent for you not so much on account of any immediate pain but because my general health has been giving me a little trouble lately. I have come to the conclusion that I require the services of a medical attendant always at hand.”
The doctor looked at his prospective patient skeptically.
“You have not the appearance,” he remarked, “of being in ill health.”
“Perhaps not,” the Prince answered. “Perhaps even, there is not for the moment very much the matter with me. One has humors, you know, my dear doctor. I have a somewhat large suite here with me in England, but I do not number amongst them a physician. I wanted to ask you to accept that position in my household for two months.”
“Do you mean come and live here?” the doctor asked.
“That is exactly what I do mean,” the Prince answered. “I am thankful to observe that your apprehensions are so acute. I warn you that I am going to make some very curious conditions. I do not know whether money is an object to you. If not, I am powerless. If it is, I propose to make it worth your while.”
The doctor did not hesitate.
“Money,” he said, “is the greatest object in life to me. I have none, and I want some very badly.”
The Prince smiled.
“I find your candor delightful,” he declared. “Now tell me, Dr. Whiles, how many patients have you in your neighborhood absolutely dependent upon your services?”
The doctor hesitated, opened his mouth and closed it again.
“Not one!” he declared.
Once more the Prince’s lips parted. His smile this time was definite, transfiguring.
“I find you, Dr. Whiles,” he announced, “a most charmingly reasonable person. I make you my offer, then, with every confidence, although I warn you that there will be some strange conditions attached to it. I ask you to accept the post of private physician to this household for the space of one—it may be two months, and I offer you also, as an honorarium, the fee of one thousand guineas.”
The doctor sat quite still for a moment. He was in a condition when speech was difficult. Then his eyes fell upon his tumbler of whiskey and soda still half filled. He emptied it at a draught.
“A thousand guineas!” he repeated hoarsely.
“I trust that you will find the sum attractive,” the Prince said smoothly, “because, as I have warned you before, there are one or two curious conditions coupled with the post.”
“I don’t care what the conditions are,” the doctor said slowly. “I accept!”
The Prince nodded.
“You are the man I thought you were, doctor,” he said. “The first condition, then, is this. You see the sitting room we are now in—a pleasant little apartment, I think,—books, you see, papers, a smoking cabinet in which I can assure you that you will find the finest Havana cigars and the best cigarettes to be procured in London. Through here”—the Prince threw open an inner door—“is a small sleeping apartment. It has, as you see, the same outlook. It is comfortable if not luxurious.”
The doctor sighed.
“I am not used to luxury,” he said.
“These two rooms will be yours,” the Prince announced, “and the first condition of our arrangement is that until two months are up, or our engagement is finished, you do not leave them.”
The doctor stared at him blankly.
“Are you in earnest, sir?” he asked.
“In absolute earnest,” the Prince assured him. “Not only that, but I require you to keep your whereabouts, until after the period of time I have mentioned, an entire secret from every one. I gather that you are not married, and that there is no one living in your house to whom it would seem necessary to disclose your movements. In any case, this is another of my conditions. You are neither to write nor receive any letters whilst here. You are to figure in the neighborhood from which you came as a man who has disappeared,—as a man, in short, who has found it impossible to pay his way and has preferred simply to slip out of his place. At the end of two months you can reappear or not, as you choose. That rests with yourself.”
The doctor smiled faintly. To make some sort of disappearance had been his precise intention, but to disappear in this fashion and make his return to the world with a thousand guineas in his pocket, had not exactly come within the scope of his imagination. It was a situation full of allurements. Nevertheless he was bewildered.
“I am to live in these two rooms?” he demanded. “I am to let no one know where I am, to write no letters, to receive none? My duties are to be simply to treat you?”
“When required,” the Prince remarked dryly.
“I suppose,” the doctor asked, “my friend Mr. Jacks was speaking the truth when he told me your name?”
“My name is Prince Maiyo,” the Prince said.
Mechanically the doctor helped himself to another whiskey and soda.
“You are to be my only patient,” he said thoughtfully. “May I take the liberty of feeling your pulse, Prince?”
The Prince extended his hand. The doctor felt it and resumed his seat.
“There is, of course, nothing whatever the matter with you,” he declared. “You are, I should say, in absolutely perfect health. You have no need of a physician.”
“On the contrary,” the Prince protested, smiling, “I need you, Dr. Whiles, so much that I am paying you a thousand guineas—”
“To remain in these two rooms,” the doctor remarked quietly.
“It is not your business to think that or to know that,” the Prince said. “Do you accept my offer?”
“If I should refuse?” the doctor asked.
The Prince hesitated.
“Do not let us suppose that,” he said. “It is not a pleasant suggestion. I do not think that you mean to refuse.”
“Frankly, I do not,” the doctor answered. “And yet treat it as a whim of mine and answer my question. Supposing I should?”
“The matter would arrange itself in precisely the same way,” the Prince answered. “You would not leave these rooms for two months.”
The doctor leaned back in his chair and laughed shortly.
“This is rather hard luck on Inspector Jacks,” he said. “He paid me ten guineas the other day to lunch with him.”
“Mr. Inspector Jacks,” the Prince remarked, “is scarcely in a position to bid you an adequate sum for your services.”
“It appears to me,” the doctor continued, “that I am kidnapped.”
“An admirable word,” the Prince declared. “At what time do you usually lunch?”
The doctor smiled.
“I am not used to motoring,” he said, “or interviews of this exciting character. I lunch, as a rule, when I can get anything to eat. The present seems to me to be a most suitable hour.”
The Prince nodded, and rose to his feet.
“I will send my servant,” he said, “to take your orders. My cook is very highly esteemed here, and I can assure you that you will not be starved. Please also make out a list of the newspapers, magazines, and books with which you would like to be supplied. I fear that, for obvious reasons, my people would hardly be able to anticipate your wants.”
“And about that examination?” the doctor remarked.
“I shall do myself the pleasure of seeing you every day,” the Prince answered. “There will be time enough for that.”
With an amiable word of farewell the Prince departed. The doctor threw himself into an easy chair. His single exclamation was laconic but forcible.
CHAPTER XXVI. SOME FAREWELLS
Never did Prince Maiyo show fewer signs of his Japanese origin than when in the company of other men of his own race. Side by side with His Excellency the Baron Hesho, the contrasts in feature and expression were so marked as to make it hard, indeed, to believe that these two men could belong to the same nation. The Baron Hesho had high cheekbones, a yellow skin, close-cropped black hair, and wore gold-rimmed spectacles through which he beamed upon the whole world. The Prince, as he lounged in his wicker chair and watched the blue smoke of his cigarette curl upwards, looked more like an Italian—perhaps a Spaniard. The shape of his head was perfectly Western, perfectly and typically Romanesque. The carriage of his body must have been inherited from his mother, of whom it was said that no more graceful woman ever walked. Yet between these two men, so different in all externals, there was the strongest sympathy, although they met but seldom.
“So we are to lose you soon, Prince,” the Baron was saying.
“Very soon indeed,” Prince Maiyo answered. “Next week I go down to Devenham. I understand that the Prime Minister and Sir Edward Bransome will be there. If so, that, I think, will be practically my leave-taking. There is no object in my staying any longer over here.”
The Baron blinked his eyes meditatively.
“I have seen very little of you, Maiyo,” he said, “since your last visit to the Continent. I take it that your views are unchanged?”
The Prince assented.
“Unchanged indeed,” he answered,—“unchangeable, I think almost that I might now say. They have been wonderful months, these last months, Baron,” he continued. “I have seen some of those things which we in Japan have heard about and wondered about all our lives. I have seen the German army at manoeuvres. I have talked to their officers. Where I could, I have talked to the men. I have been to some of their great socialist meetings. I have heard them talk about their country and their Emperor, and what would happen to their officers if war should come. I have seen the French artillery. I have been the guest of the President. I have tried to understand the peculiar attitude which that country has always adopted toward us. I have been, unrecognized, in St. Petersburg. I have tried to understand a little the resources of that marvellous country. I came back here in time for the great review in the Solent. I have seen the most magnificent ships and the most splendid naval discipline the world has ever known. Then I have explored the interior of this island as few of our race have explored it before, not for the purpose of studying the manufactures, the trades, the immense shipbuilding industries,—simply to study the people themselves.”
The Baron nodded gravely.
“I ask no questions,” he said. “It is the Emperor’s desire, I know, that you go straight to him. I take it that your mind is made up,—you have arrived at definite conclusions?”
“Absolutely.” Prince Maiyo answered. “I shall make no great secret of them. You already, my dear Baron, know, I think, whither they lead. I shall be unpopular for a time, I suppose, and your own position may be made a little difficult. After that, things will go on pretty much the same. Of one thing, though, I am assured. I see it as clearly as the shepherd who has lain the night upon the hillside sees the coming day. It may be twelve months, it may be two years, it may even be three, but before that time has passed the clouds will have gathered, the storm will have burst. Then, I think, Hesho, our master will be glad that we are free.”
The Baron agreed.
“Only a few nights ago,” he said, “Captain Koki and the other attaches spent an evening with me. We have charts and pieces, and with locked doors we played a war game of our own invention. It should all be over in three weeks.”
Prince Maiyo laughed softly.
“You are right,” he said. “I have gone over the ground myself. It could be done in even less time. You should ask a few of our friends to that war game, Baron. How they would smile! You read the newspapers of the country?”
“Invariably,” the Ambassador answered.
“There is an undercurrent of feeling somewhere,” the Prince continued,—“one of the cheaper organs is shrieking all the time a brazen warning. Patriotism, as you and I understand it, dear friend, is long since dead, but if one strikes hard enough at the flint, some fire may come. Hesho, how short our life is! How little we can understand! We have only the written words of those who have gone before, to show us the cities and the empires that have been, to teach us the reasons why they decayed and crumbled away. We have only our own imagination to help us to look forward into the future and see the empires that may rise, the kingdoms that shall stand, the kingdoms that shall fall. Amongst them all, Hesho, there is but this much of truth. It is our own dear country and our one great rival across the Pacific who, in the years to come, must fight for the supremacy of the world.”
“It will be no fight, that,” the Ambassador answered slowly,—“no fight unless a new prophet is born to them. The money-poison is sucking the very blood from their body. The country is slowly but surely becoming honey-combed with corruption. The voices of its children are like the voices from the tower of Babel. If their strong man should arise, then the fight will be the fiercest the world has ever known. Even then the end is not doubtful. The victory will be ours. When the universe is left for them and for us, it will be our sons who shall rule. Listen, Maiyo.”
“I listen,” the Prince answered.
The Baron Hesho had laid aside his spectacles. He leaned a little towards his companion. His voice had fallen to a whisper, his hand fell almost caressingly upon his friend’s shoulder.
“I would speak of something else,” he continued. “Soon you go to the Duke’s house. You will meet there the people who are in authority over this country. When you leave it, everything is finished. Tell me, is the way homeward safe for you?”
“Wonderful person!” Prince Maiyo said, smiling.
“No, I am not wonderful,” the Ambassador declared. “All the time I have had my fears. Why not? A month ago I sought your aid. I knew from our friends in New York that a man was on his way to England with letters which made clear, beyond a doubt, the purpose of this world journey of the American fleet. I sent for you. We both agreed that it was an absolute necessity for us to know the contents of those letters.”
“We discovered them,” the Prince answered. “It was well that we did.”
“You discovered them,” the Ambassador interrupted. “I have taken no credit for it. The credit is yours. But in this land there are so many things which one may not do. The bowstring and the knife are unrecognized. Civilization has set an unwholesome value upon human life. It is the maudlin sentiment which creeps like corruption through the body of a dying country.”
“I know it,” the Prince declared, sighing. “I know it very well indeed.”
“Dear Maiyo,” the Ambassador asked, “how well do you know it?”
“My friend,” the Prince answered, “it were better for you not to ask that question.”
“Here under this roof,” the Baron continued, “is sanctuary, but in the streets and squares beyond, it seems to me—and I have thought this over many times,—it seems to me that even the person of the great Prince, cousin of the Emperor, holy son of Japan, would not be safe.”
Prince Maiyo shrugged his shoulders. There was gravity in his face, but it was the gravity of a man who has learnt to look upon serious things with a light heart.
“I, also,” he said, “have weighed this matter very carefully in my mind. What I did was well done, and if the bill is thrust into my face, I must pay. First of all, Baron, I promise you that I shall finish my work. After that, what does it matter? You and I know better than this nation of life-loving shopkeepers. A week, a year, a span of years,—of what account are they to us who have sipped ever so lightly at the great cup? If we died tomorrow for the glory of our country, should we not say to one another, you and I, that it was well?”
The Baron rose to his feet and bowed. Into his voice there had crept a note almost of reverence.
“Prince,” he said, “almost you take me back to the one mother country. Almost your words persuade me that the strangeness of these Western lands is a passing thing. We wonder, and as we wonder they shall crumble away. The sun rises in the East.”
The Prince also rose. Servants came silently forward, bearing his hat and gloves.
“Perhaps,” the Prince smiled, as he made his adieux—
“Perhaps,” the Ambassador echoed. “Who can tell?”
The Prince sent away his carriage and walked homeward, greeting every now and then an acquaintance. He walked cheerfully and with a smile upon his face. There was nothing in his appearance which could possibly have indicated to the closest observer that this was a man who had taken death by the hand. At the corner of Regent Street and Pall Mall he overtook Inspector Jacks. He leaned forward at once and touched the detective on the shoulder.
“Mr. Jacks,” he said, “it is pleasant to see you once more. I was afraid that I should have to leave without bidding you farewell.”
The Inspector started. The Prince laughed to himself as he watched that gesture. Indeed, a man who showed his feelings so easily would be very much at a loss in Tokio!
“You are going away, Prince?” the Inspector asked quickly. “When?”
“The exact day is not fixed,” the Prince replied, “but it is true that I am going home. I have finished my work, and, you see, there is nothing to keep me over here any longer. Tell me, have you had any fortune yet? I read the papers every day, hoping to see that you have cleared up those two terrible affairs.”
Inspector Jacks shook his head.
“Not yet, Prince,” he said.
“Not yet,” the Prince echoed. “Dear me, that is very unfortunate!”
Inspector Jacks watched the people who were passing, for a moment, with a fixed, unseeing gaze.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that we must seem to you very slow and very stupid. Very likely we are. And yet, yet in time we generally reach our goal. Sometimes we go a long way round. Sometimes we wait almost over long, but sooner or later we strike.”
The Prince nodded sympathetically.
“The best of fortune to you, Mr. Jacks!” he said. “I wish you could have cleared these matters up before I left for home. It is pure selfishness, of course, but I have always felt a great interest in your work.”
“If we do not clear them up before you leave the country, Prince,” the Inspector answered, “I fear that we shall never clear them up at all.”
The Prince passed on smiling. A conversation with Inspector Jacks seemed always to inspire him. It was a fine afternoon and Pall Mall was crowded. In a few moments he came face to face with Somerfield, who greeted him a little gloomily.
“Sir Charles,” the Prince said, “I hope that I shall have the pleasure of meeting you at Devenham?”
“I am not sure,” Somerfield answered. “I have been asked, but I promised some time ago to go up to Scotland. I have a third share in a river there, and the season for salmon is getting on.”
“I am sorry,” the Prince declared. “I have no doubt, however, but that Miss Morse will induce you to change your mind. I should regret your absence the more,” he continued, “because this, I fear, is the last visit which I shall be paying in this country.”
Somerfield was genuinely interested.
“You are really going home?” he asked eagerly.
“Almost at once,” the Prince answered.
“Only for a time, I suppose?” Somerfield continued.
The Prince shook his head.
“On the contrary,” he said, “I imagine that this will be a long goodbye. I think I can promise you that if ever I reach Japan I shall remain there. My work in this hemisphere will be accomplished.”
Somerfield looked at him with the puzzled air of a man who is face to face with a problem which he cannot solve.
“You’ll forgive my putting it so plainly, Prince,” he remarked, “but do you mean to say that after having lived over here you could possibly settle down again in Japan?”
The Prince returned for a moment his companion’s perplexed gaze. Then his lips parted, his eyes shone. He laughed softly, gracefully, with genuine mirth.
“Sir Charles,” he said, “I shall not forget that question. I think that of all the Englishmen whom I have met you are the most English of all. When I think of your great country, as I often shall do, of her sons and her daughters, I will promise you that to me you shall always represent the typical man of your race and fortune.”
The Prince left his companion loitering along Pall Mall, still a little puzzled. He called a taxi and drove to Devenham House. The great drawing rooms were almost empty. Lady Grace was just saying goodbye to some parting guests. She welcomed the Prince with a little flush of pleasure.
“I find you alone?” he remarked.
“My mother is opening a bazaar somewhere,” Lady Grace said. “She will be home very soon. Do let me give you some tea.”
“It is my excuse for coming,” the Prince admitted.
She called back the footman who had shown him in.
“China tea, very weak, in a china teapot with lemon and no sugar. Isn’t that it?” she asked, smiling.
“Lady Grace,” he declared, “you spoil me. Perhaps it is because I am going away. Every one is kind to the people who go away.”
She looked at him anxiously.
“Going away!” she exclaimed. “When? Do you mean back to Japan?”
“Back to my own country,” he answered. “Perhaps in two weeks, perhaps three—who can tell?”
“But you are coming to Devenham first?” she asked eagerly.
“I am coming to Devenham first,” he assented. “I called this afternoon to let your father know the date on which I could come. I promised that he should hear from me today. He was good enough to say either Thursday or Friday. Thursday, I find, will suit me admirably.”
She drew a little sigh.
“So you are going back,” she said softly. “I wonder why so many people seem to have taken it for granted that you would settle down here. Even I had begun to hope so.”
He smiled.
“Lady Grace,” he said, “I am not what you call a cosmopolitan. To live over here in any of these Western countries would seem to denote that one may change one’s dwelling place as easily as one changes one’s clothes. The further east you go, the more reluctant one is, I think, to leave the shadow of one’s own trees. The man who leaves my country leaves it to go into exile. The man who returns, returns home.”
She was a little perplexed.
“I should have imagined,” she said, “that the people who leave your country as emigrants to settle in American or even over here might have felt like that. But you of the educated classes I should have thought would have found more over here to attract you, more to induce you to choose a new home.”
He shook his head.
“Lady Grace,” he said, “believe me that is not so. The traditions of our race—the call of the blood, as you put it over here—is as powerful a thing with our aristocratics as with our peasants. We find much here to wonder at and admire, much that, however unwillingly, we are forced to take back and adopt in our own country, but it is a strange atmosphere for us, this. For my country-people there is but one real home, but one motherland.”
“Yet you have seemed so contented over here,” she remarked. “You have entered so easily into all our ways.”
He set down his teacup and smiled at her for a moment gravely.
“I came with a purpose,” he said. “I came in order to observe and to study certain features of your life, but, believe me, I have felt the strain—I have felt it sometimes very badly. These countries, yours especially, are like what one of your great poets called the Lotus-Lands for us. Much of your life here is given to pursuits which we do not understand, to sports and games, to various forms of what we should call idleness. In my country we know little of that. In one way or another, from the Emperor to the poor runner in the streets, we work.”
“Is there nothing which you will regret?” she asked.
“I shall regret the friends I have made,—the very dear friends,” he repeated, “who have been so very much kinder to me than I have deserved. Life is a sad pilgrimage sometimes, because one may not linger for a moment at any one spot, nor may one ever look back. But I know quite well that when I leave here there will be many whom I would gladly see again.”
“There will be many, Prince,” she said softly, “who will be sorry to see you go.”
The Prince rose to his feet. Another little stream of callers had come into the room. Presently he drank his tea and departed. When he reached St. James’ Square, his majordomo came hurrying up and whispered something in his own language.
The Prince smiled.
“I go to see him,” he said. “I will go at once.”
CHAPTER XXVII. A PRISONER
Dr. Spencer Whiles was sitting in a very comfortable easy chair, smoking a particularly good cigar, with a pile of newspapers by his side. His appearance certainly showed no signs of hardship. His linen, and the details of his toilet generally, supplied from some mysterious source into which he had not inquired, were much improved. Notwithstanding his increased comfort, however, he was looking perplexed, even a little worried, and the cause of it was there in front of him, in the advertisement sheets of the various newspapers which had been duly laid upon his table.
The Prince came in quietly and closed the door behind him.
“Good afternoon, my friend!” he said. “I understood that you wished to see me.”
The doctor had made up his mind to adopt a firm attitude. Nevertheless the genial courtesy of the Prince’s tone and manner had the same effect upon him as it had upon most people. He half rose to his feet and became at once apologetic.
“I hope that I have not disturbed you, Prince,” he said. “I thought that I should like to have a word or two with you concerning something which I have come across in these journals.”
He tapped them with his forefinger, and the Prince nodded thoughtfully.
“Your wonderful Press!” he exclaimed. “How much it is responsible for! Well, Dr. Whiles, what have the newspapers to say to you?”
The doctor handed across a carefully folded journal and pointed to a certain paragraph.
“Will you kindly read this?” he begged.
The Prince accepted the sheet and read the paragraph aloud:
“FIFTY POUNDS REWARD! Disappeared from his home in Long Whatton on Wednesday morning last, Herbert Spencer Whiles, Surgeon. The above reward will be paid to any one giving information which will lead to the discovery of his present whereabouts. Was last seen in a motor car, Limousine body, painted dark green, leaving Long Whatton in the direction of London.”
The Prince laid down the paper, smiling.
“Well?” he asked. “That seems clear enough. Some one is willing to give fifty pounds to know where you are.”
The doctor tapped the advertisement with his forefinger impressively.
“Fifty pounds!” he repeated. “There isn’t a person in the world to whom the knowledge of my movements is worth fifty pounds—except—”
“Except?” the Prince murmured.
“Except Mr. Inspector Jacks,” Dr. Whiles said slowly.
The Prince seemed scarcely to grasp the situation.
“Well,” he said, “fifty pounds is not a great deal of money. Some unknown person—possibly, as you suggest, Mr. Jacks—is willing to give fifty pounds to discover your whereabouts. I, on the other hand, am giving a thousand guineas to keep you here as my guest. The odds do not seem even, do they?”
“Put in that way,” Dr. Whiles admitted, “they certainly do not. But there is another thing which has come into my mind.”
The Prince smiled and helped himself to one of the very excellent cigarettes which had been provided for the delectation of his visitor.
“Pray treat me with every confidence, Dr. Whiles,” he said. “Tell me exactly what is in your thoughts.”
“Well, then, I will,” the doctor answered. “Sitting here with nothing particular to do, one has plenty of leisure to think. For the first time, I have seriously tried to puzzle out what Mr. Inspector Jacks really wanted with me, why he came down to ask me about the person whom I treated for injuries resulting from a bicycle accident one Wednesday evening not long ago, why he took me up to London to see if I could identify that person in a very different guise. I have tried to put the pieces together and to ask myself what he meant by it all.”
“With so much time upon your hands, Dr. Whiles,” the Prince remarked, “you can scarcely fail to have arrived at some reasonable explanation.”
“I don’t know whether it is reasonable or not,” the doctor answered, “but the obvious explanation is getting on my nerves. There are two things which I cannot get away from. One is that I cannot for the life of me imagine your riding a bicycle twelve or fifteen miles north of London between eleven o’clock and midnight; and the other—”
“Come, the other?” the Prince remarked encouragingly.
“The other,” the doctor continued, “is the fact that within half a mile of my house runs the main London and North Western line.”
“The London and North Western Railway line,” the Prince repeated, “and what has that to do with it?”
“This much,” the doctor answered, “that on that very night, about half an hour before your—shall we call it bicycle accident?—the special train from Liverpool to London passed along that line. You will remember the tragic occurrence which took place before she reached London, the murder of the man Hamilton Fynes. If you read the report of the evidence at the inquest, you will notice the engine driver’s declaration that the only time on the whole journey when he travelled at less than forty miles an hour was when passing over the viaduct and before entering the tunnel which is plainly visible from my house.”
“This is very interesting,” the Prince remarked, “but it is not new. We have known all this before. Perhaps, though, some fresh thing has come into your mind connected with these happenings. If so, please do not hesitate. Let me hear it.”
“It is a fresh thing to me,” the doctor said,—“fresh, in a sense, though all the time I have had an uneasy feeling at the back of my head. I know now what it was which brought Inspector Jacks to see me. I know now what it was he had at the back of his head concerning the man who met with a bicycle accident at this psychological moment.”
“Inspector Jacks is a very shrewd fellow,” the Prince said. “I should not be in the least surprised if you were entirely right.”
The doctor moved restlessly in his chair. His eyes remained on his companion’s face, as though fascinated.
“Can’t you understand,” he said, “that Inspector Jacks is on your track? Rightly or wrongly, he believes that you had something to do with the murder on the train that night.”
The Prince nodded amiably. He seemed in no way discomposed.
“I feel convinced,” he said, “that you are right. I agree with you. I believe that Inspector Jacks has had that idea for some little time now.”
The doctor gripped the sides of his chair and stared at this man who discussed a matter so terrible with calm and perfect ease.
“Yes, I have felt that more than once,” the Prince continued. “My presence upon the spot at that precise moment with injuries which had to be explained somehow or other, was, without doubt, unfortunate.”
The two men sat for several moments without further speech. The doctor’s features seemed to reflect something of the horror which he undoubtedly felt. The Prince appeared only a trifle bored.
“So that is why,” the former exclaimed hoarsely, “I have been appointed your physician in chief!”
“I had given you the credit, my dear doctor,” the Prince said smoothly, “of having arrived at that decision some time ago. To a man of your perceptions there can scarcely have been any question about it at all. Besides, even Princes, you know, do not give fees of a thousand guineas for nothing.”
Dr. Whiles rose slowly to his feet.
“You know the secret of that murder!” he declared.
“Why ask me?” the Prince answered. “If I tell you that I do, you may find conscientious scruples about remaining here. A man is not bound, you know, to give himself away. Make the best of things, and do not try to see too far.”
The doctor was looking a little shaken.
“If you were mixed up in that affair,” he said, “and if I remain here when my evidence is needed, I become an accomplice.”
“Only if you remain here voluntarily,” the Prince reminded him cheerfully. “Remember that and be comforted. No effort that you could make now would bring you into touch with Mr. Inspector Jacks until I am quite prepared. So you see, my dear doctor, that you have nothing with which to reproach yourself. I will not insult you,” he continued, “by suggesting that a reward of fifty pounds could possibly have influenced your attitude. If you have suffered your mind to dwell upon it for a single moment, try and remember the relative unimportance of such an amount when compared with a thousand guineas.”
The doctor moved to the window and back again.
“Supposing,” he said, “I decline to remain here? Supposing I say that, believing you now to have a guilty knowledge of this murder, I repudiate our bargain? Supposing I say that I will have nothing more to do with your thousand guineas,—that I will leave this house?”
“Then we come to close quarters,” the Prince answered, “and you force me to tell you in plain words that, until I am ready for you to leave it, you are as much a prisoner in this room as though the keys of the strongest fortress in Europe were turned upon you. I have told you this before. I thought that we perfectly understood one another.”
“I did not understand,” the doctor protested. “I knew that there was trouble, but I did not know that it was this!”
“The fact of your knowing or not knowing makes no difference,” the Prince answered. “You are no longer a free agent. The only question for you to decide is whether you remain here willingly or whether you will force me to remind you of our bargain.”
The doctor was sitting down again now. All the time he watched the Prince with a gleam in his eyes, partly of horror, partly of fear. He no longer doubted but that he was in the presence of a criminal.
“I am sorry,” the Prince continued, “that you have allowed this little matter to disturb you. I thought that we had arranged it all at our last interview. If you did not surmise my reasons for keeping you here, then I am afraid I gave you credit for more intelligence than you possess. You will excuse me now, I am sure,” he added, rising. “I have some letters to send off before I change. By the bye, do you care to give me your parole? It might, perhaps, lessen the inconvenience to which you are unfortunately subject.”
The doctor shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I will not give my parole!”
Late that night, he tried the handle of his door and found it open. The corridor outside was in thick darkness. He felt his way along by the wall. Suddenly, from behind, a pair of large soft hands gripped him by the throat. Slowly he was drawn back—almost strangled.
“Let me go!” he called out, struggling in vain to find a body upon which he could gain a grip.
The grasp only tightened.
“Back to your rooms!” came a whisper through the darkness.
The doctor returned. When he staggered into his sitting room, he turned up the electric light. There were red marks upon his throat and perspiration upon his forehead. He opened the door once more and looked out upon the landing, striking a match and holding it over his head. There was no one in sight, yet all the time he had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. For the first time in his life he wondered whether a thousand guineas was, after all, such a magnificent fee!
Almost at the same time the Prince sat back in the shadows of the Duchess of Devenham’s box at the Opera and talked quietly to Lady Grace.
“But tell me, Prince,” she begged, “I know that you are glad to go home, but won’t you really miss this a little,—the music, the life, all these things that make up existence here? Your own country is wonderful, I know, but it has not progressed so far, has it?”
He shook his head.
“I think,” he said, “that the portion of our education which we have most grievously neglected is the development of our recreations. But then you must remember that we are to a certain extent without that craving for amusement which makes these things necessary for you others. We are perhaps too serious in my country, Lady Grace. We lack altogether that delightful air of irresponsibility with which you Londoners seem to make your effortless way through life.”
She was a little perplexed.
“I don’t believe,” she said, “that in your heart you approve of us at all.”
“Do not say that, Lady Grace,” he begged. “It is simply that I have been brought up in so different a school. This sort of thing is very wonderful, and I shall surely miss it. Yet nowadays the world is being linked together in marvellous fashion. Tokio and London are closer today than ever they have been in the world’s history.”
“And our people?” she asked. “Do you really think that our people are so far apart? Between you and me, for instance,” she added, meaning to ask the question naturally enough, but suddenly losing confidence and looking away from him,—“between you and me there seems no radical difference of race. You might almost be an Englishman—not one of these men of fashion, of course, but a statesman or a man of letters, some one who had taken hold of the serious side of life.”
“You pay me a very delightful compliment,” he murmured.
“Please repay me, then, by being candid,” she answered. “Consider for a moment that I am a typical English girl, and tell me whether I am so very different from the Japanese women of your own class?”
He hesitated for a moment. The question was not without its embarrassments.
“Men,” he said, “are very much the same, all the world over. They are like the coarse grass which grows everywhere. But the flowers, you know, are different in every country.”
Lady Grace sighed. Perhaps she had been a trifle too daring! She was willing enough, at any rate, to let the subject drift away.
“Soon the curtain will go up,” she said, “and we can talk no longer. I should like to tell you, though, how glad I am—how glad we all are—that you can come to us next week.”
“I can assure you that I am looking forward to it,” he answered a little gravely. “It is my farewell to all of you, you know, and it seems to me that those who will be your father’s guests are just those with whom I have been on the most intimate terms since I came to England.”
She nodded.
“Penelope is coming,” she said quickly,—“you know that?—Penelope and Sir Charles Somerfield.”
“Yes,” he answered, “I heard so.”
The curtain went up. The faint murmur of the violins was suddenly caught up and absorbed in the thunderous music of a march. Lady Grace moved nearer to the front. Prince Maiyo remained where he was among the shadows. The music was in his ears, but his eyes were half closed.