The afternoon papers had published the brief statement prepared by Robin in the seclusion of his stateroom on board the Jupiter immediately after a most enjoyable hour with Miss Guile. It was a curt and extremely positive denial of the rumoured engagement, with the additional information that he never had seen Miss Blithers and was more or less certain that she never had set eyes on him.
A rather staggering co-incidence appeared with the published report that Miss Blithers herself was supposed to be somewhere in Europe, word having been received that day from sources in London that she had sailed from New York under an assumed name. The imaginative French journals put two and two together and dwelt upon the possibility that the two young people who had never seen each other might have crossed the Atlantic on the same steamer, seeing each other frequently and yet remaining entirely in the dark, so to speak. Inspired writers began to weave a romance out of the probabilities.
On one point Robin was adamantine. He refused positively to have his identity disclosed at this time, and Gourou had to say to the newspapers that the Prince was even then on his way to Vienna, hurrying homeward as fast as steel cars could carry him. He admitted that the young man had arrived on the Jupiter that morning, having remained in the closest seclusion all the way across the Atlantic.
This equivocation necessitated the most cautious rearrangement of plans on the part of the Baron. He was required to act as though he had no acquaintance with either of the three travellers stopping at the Ritz, although for obvious reasons he took up a temporary abode there himself. Moreover, he had to telegraph the Prime Minister in Edelweiss that the Prince was not to be budged, and would in all likelihood postpone his return to the capitol. All of which stamped the honest Baron as a most prodigious liar, if one stops to think of what he said to the reporters.
The newspapers also printed a definite bit of news in the shape of a despatch from New York to the effect that Mr. and Mrs. William W. Blithers were sailing for Europe on the ensuing day, bound for Graustark!
However, the chief and present concern of the three loyal gentlemen in midnight conclave was not centred in the trouble that Mr. Blithers had started, but in the more desperate situation created by Miss Guile. She was the peril that now confronted them, and she was indeed a peril. Quinnox and Dank explained the situation to the Minister of Police, and the Minister of Police admitted that the deuce was to pay.
"There is but one way out of it," said he, speaking officially, "and that is the simplest one I know of."
"Assassination, I suppose," said Dank scornfully.
"It rests with me, gentlemen," said the Baron, ignoring the lieutenant's remark, "to find Miss Guile and take her into my confidence in respect—"
"No use," said Dank, and, to his surprise, the Count repeated the words after him.