I breathed freely once more. It was better luck than I had deserved.
"Show me to him at once," I said sharply.
The room was empty when I entered, and the man explained that his master was dressing, and that he would announce my visit. Suspicious of trickery in even small things, I kept the room door open lest von Nauheim should attempt to slip away while I was shut up inside it. But he made no attempt of the sort, and after keeping me waiting long enough to try my patience he came in smiling and wearing an air of insolent triumph.
"Ah, Prince, so you've come to pay me a visit, eh? I thought you were never going to enter my doors again. My man told me it was urgent business, too. You look a bit out of sorts. What's up?"
"I come with very serious news," I said.
"Egad, you look it, too," he broke in. "What's the matter?"
"That our whole scheme has fallen through. My cousin, I have every reason to fear, has been carried off by the Ostenburg agents."
"Carried off by the Ostenburgs! why, man, what nonsense is this?" he cried, with an air of incredulity. "Half an hour ago she was kissing that lunatic's hand."
"Nevertheless what I say is true. When she left the throne-room she and the Baroness Gratz entered the carriage to return home, and the carriage has never reached the house. I cannot account for it," I cried, as if amazed and baffled. "That is the only moment she has not been under the strictest guard and watch. But she has gone, and what can it mean but that they have got her?"
"You mean to say you were so foolish as to let her drive through Munich alone, or, rather, with no one but a silly old woman with her, on a day like this, and at such a crisis. Well, you took the responsibility of guarding her, and must put up with the consequences. But I can't believe it."