Because he was the War Lord's "Jeanie," Lynar would not listen to "Tütü's" and "Willy's" and "Freddy's" hints about the Bank of England as a safe depository.
"Some day," he used to bluster, "a few weeks or a month after 'The Day,' I will ride up Threadneedle Street and straight into the vaults of that venerable pile, and leap my charger over mountains of gold—will be quite a change, don't you know, from jumping fences at Hoppegarten."
As to the others, Sailor Trost and ditto Gustav Steinhauer each enjoyed a meteoric career, rising in quick order to petty officership—impossible to advance them higher, because they were men without education; and whenever and wherever an excuse could be found for employing them in that extraordinary capacity, they were given charge of the Imperial person. Thus Gustav Steinhauer always acted as chief guardian of the War Lord's lodging in Castle Liebenberg when the Majesty visited his beloved Phili.
Kestler was a miserable subaltern, destined to starve on a daily wage of four marks, when Eulenburg discovered and introduced him to Majesty. Under the War Lord's favour, he was transferred to a more lucrative department in the service, and decorated!
Yet why the Pour le Merite for Kestler, and for Eulenburg, Wedell, etc.? What were their peculiar merits? Has anyone ever been able to discover?
To-day Eulenburg, twice tried, is a prisoner for life on his estate; the two Hohenaus are banished from Germany, and dare not come back on pain of arrest; Count Kuno von Moltke is a pensioner of the German people on foreign soil; Count Wedell forfeited the two gold buttons on the tails of his frac and his residence at the Princess's palace.
Why did they get off so easily in comparison when the crash came?
The answer is obvious enough. These persons had been careful to deposit in London, E.C., the letters they had received from a certain exalted party who shall be nameless, and Count Lynar, prisoner No. 5429 at Siegburg Jail, had neglected that simple precaution.
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW VON BOHLEN WAS CHOSEN