The Amateur Diplomat: A Novel

by Hugh S. Eayrs; Thomas B. Costain

The particular department of the well-known firm of Fate & Co., to which had been deputed the difficult task of weaving a train of circumstances that would plunge a nation into war, had been working overtime during the forty or so hours that Donald Fenton had been in Serajoz. The web was being surely and unerringly spun, and already certain skeins that represented human lives had been closely interwoven. Three lives, indexed in the ledgers of Fate perhaps by soul numbers, but distinguished from other mortals on earth by the titles of Donald Fenton, the Grand Duke Miridoff, and Olga of Ironia, were so hopelessly tangled, it was apparent that in the unravelling process one or more might be snapped off. Peering at what was ahead, the grim official saw two men stand face to face with the world-old issue to be settled between them, at the same time that angry mobs stormed palace walls for a cause that a stubborn king had forsworn.

And with this objective in view the minion of Fate first prompted a prudent thought to take possession of the mind of Prince Peter that morning, and then saw to it that a whisper of a restaurant brawl and a duel, impending or already fought, reached the ears of the Princess Olga. Acting on the first, Prince Peter decided that in its upset condition Serajoz was no place for his daughter, and notified her that he had decided she must go to his county estate at Kail Baleski until such time as the trouble blew over, and acting on the second, Olga hurriedly summoned her carriage and set out for a house on the Lodz where resided her very great confidante, the Baroness Draschol. Not content with this, the untiring tangler of human skeins prompted a certain little person of exceptional personal charm and international antecedents to don the garb of a peasant woman, muffling her face in a hood, and to set off on foot by sundry unfrequented streets and alleys bound for the same residence in the Lodz.

When he had seen that the princess entered by the front portal at the very moment that the pseudo-peasant knocked at a rear entrance, and had furthermore satisfied himself that Donald Fenton had risen from the breakfast-table and had strolled aimlessly into the library, there to wait for his host who had been called away, the official of Fate was content to sit back and let events take their course, confident that now his human puppets could not deviate from the lines he had laid down for them.

Baroness Draschol received her royal friend in her own sitting-room, which was just across the hall from the library. There they chatted for some time. Olga soon gleaned such information with reference to the postponed duel as the prudent Varden had seen fit to trust to his wife. In the meantime the peasant woman, who had asked at the rear door first for Mr Varden and then for Mr Fenton, and had been admitted only after the transfer of a gold coin, had been escorted to the library, where she removed the heavy hood, revealing the pleasing features of Anna Petrowa.

Fenton, who was becoming inured to surprises of all descriptions, accepted this transformation with equanimity.

"Good morning, mademoiselle," he said, setting a chair for her. "I am delighted to see you, but not surprised. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened for half an hour or so. I felt that the inactivity wouldn't keep up much longer."

"I am so more than glad that monsieur has come to no harm," said the dancer quite earnestly. "I see it all now. It was a plot to trap you, and I an innocent part playing in it. But monsieur, I see, does not think of me as the double traitor."

She placed a finger on her lips to enjoin silence, and then, tip-toeing over beside him, whispered:

"I had not time before we were interrupted to tell the big news that I have learned, and thus have I risked all by coming here so in the broad daylight. It is this: Many of the army officers are with our cunning Miridoff, and a plot is spreading to force Ironia into war against Russia by the same means that they used with Turkey. A body of Ironian troops, acting without official orders, will cross the line to Russia and burn a village or so. The Russians, of course, they retaliate, and then war is certain to follow. It is all arranged, monsieur. Where or when I do not know. Word, I beseech, must be taken at once to his highness."

Fenton sprang up and paced the floor excitedly. "Of course, it is exactly what they would do," he exclaimed. "Last night has shown them that they cannot win by fair means. Mr Varden is out, mademoiselle, but will be back in a very few minutes. Word shall be taken to Prince Peter as soon as he returns."