The young man hesitated.
“He is the same height and figure as the man I saw enter the taxi,” he said. “I believe that it is he.”
Inspector Jacks stepped forward, but the Prince held out his hand.
“Wait!” he ordered, and his voice was sterner than any there had ever heard him use. There was a fire in his eyes from which the man at his feet appeared to shrink.
“Soto,” the Prince said, and he spoke in his own language, so that no person in that room understood him save the one whom he addressed,—“why have you done this?”
The man lay there, resting now upon his side, and supporting himself by the palm of his right hand. His upturned face seemed to have in it all the passionate pleading of a dumb animal.
“Illustrious Prince,” he answered, speaking also in his own tongue, “I did it for Japan! Who are you to blame me, who have offered his own life so freely? I have no weight in the world. For you the future is big. You will go back to Japan, you will sit at the right hand of the Emperor. You will tell him of the follies and the wisdom of these strange countries. You will guide him in difficulties. Your hand will be upon his as he writes across the sheets of time, for the glory of the Motherland. Banzai, illustrious Prince! I, too, am of the immortals!”
He suddenly collapsed. The doctor bent over him, but the Prince shook his head slowly.
“It is useless,” he said. “The man has confessed his crime. He has told me the whole truth. He has taken poison.”
Lady Grace began to cry softly. The air of the room seemed heavy with pent-up emotions. The Prince moved slowly toward the door and threw it open. He turned towards them all.