“Ah, but Count,” pleaded the other, in a tone of conciliation. “His Royal Highness! Could I put the Crown Prince to such humiliation? You know yourself that I would not be justified. It was better, it seemed to me, to have him safely confined in a private hospital in Paris for the present. In a little while, perhaps, his mind will clear.”
“What is the form of his mania?”
“It is most peculiar,” explained the Herr Captain. “You understand, of course, that until five months ago he had no idea whatever that he was who he is. He was, as you have been told, a valet, but a very superior man of his class. It is most certainly true that blood counts. He had all the inherent dignity of birth. His mind was far above his assumed station. All this you know. You may not have heard, though, that he was employed by an American stock broker named Grey who one day embezzled four hundred thousand marks and ran away.”
“Yes,” put in the Count, “I was informed of that as well.”
“Just so. Well,” continued the Captain, “His Royal Highness now, strangely enough, imagines that he is Grey.”
“Imagines that he is an embezzler?” queried Ritter.
“Precisely. He even cabled to New York giving his Paris address, and the United States Embassy there was for arresting him and having him extradited.”
“And when did this mania develop?”
“After the death of the Herr Doctor Schlippenbach.”
The Chancellor sat thoughtfully rubbing together his long, virile hands.