"The Grand Hôtel. You must go to the police."
I rang the bell, and asked that the proprietor of the house come at once to my room. He came, and I demanded an explanation of the mystery.
"You must know, mademoiselle," he began, "that in Vienna we are all in the power of the police: they must have the name, nationality, business and address of every person who comes into the city. The morning after your arrival these men came and asked if two English ladies were stopping here. I said 'Yes.' They then said they believed you were persons they had been trying for two weeks to catch, and that you were very suspicious characters who had been stopping here in the Grand Hôtel. I told them it was not possible—that you had come direct from Italy; and I mentioned the telegram you had sent from Trieste, and that you had been recommended to my courtesy by a gentleman whom I well knew and who had many times lodged here. But they went away, and came back again next day, making some inquiries about you, and asking if numbers so and so were those of your rooms. You were out, and whether they visited your rooms or not I cannot say. This is all that I know. Now they are here again, and if they say you must go to the police-court, there will be no other way but to go."
"But I don't understand. I have my passport: there is my bill, receipted at the hotel in Trieste six days ago. I never knew before it was a crime for two English-speaking women to travel alone or to stop at a Grand Hôtel. Of what are we suspected? and upon what grounds suspected?"
"Why, a napkin has been seen among your effects with the mark of the Grand Hôtel upon it."
After a moment's thought it flashed into my mind that it was that Nice serviette, and, more amused than annoyed, I exclaimed, "Oh, I have it. 'Tis that serviette St. Cecilia took at Nice;" and opening my trunk soon had it in my hands, holding it up by two corners for the men to see and explaining how it came into my possession.
"It will go very hard with Madame Cecilia," observed the spokesman: "you will please give us her address."
My indiscretion at once became apparent, but I was a complete novice in "being arrested." To involve Cecilia in the affair would be but an aggravation of matters, and I at once decided, come what might, I would not give the police her address. Looking at the half-obliterated stamp in the corner of the napkin, there was unmistakably the mark "Grand Hôtel," but directly underneath "Nice," which the police, in their ardor to find me guilty of something which I could not find out, had undoubtedly mistaken for Wien, the German name for Vienna. I called their attention to the "Nice," asking what jurisdiction the Austrian government had over matters relating to hotels in Italy. They replied by looking very closely at the stamp, and then one of them took my passport and the napkin and went out, leaving the other man to guard our apartment, and soon returned with a new arrest for myself and my gesellschafterin, Miss Barton still refusing to give her name. The landlord had only placed mine in the visitors' book, thereby making himself liable to a fine of eight or ten dollars.
Nothing could have been more widely different than the effect produced upon Kate and myself. To me the whole affair was inexpressibly mysterious and ludicrous, notwithstanding the insolence of the police, and, as it seemed to me, their amazing stupidity. Poor Kate was the wrathfullest woman I ever saw, while her obstinate refusal to answer any questions about herself only increased the ferocity of the men, whose treatment of her was shameful in the extreme. They threatened to search our trunks, which aroused Kate's wrath the more. I observed that as they had assumed the right to unlock and search mine during my absence, they were probably already acquainted with its contents. They, however, abandoned the searching scheme, and ordered us to get ready to go to the police-court, which was about two minutes' walk distant. Kate declared that to the police-court she would not go, unless she were dragged there by her hair, while the men declared that she would then be taken by armed force. I concluded to telegraph to the American embassy for help, but that was denied me. Herr Schwager had called to see us only the day previous, saying his lodgings were quite in our neighborhood, but we had not asked his address. There seemed nothing to do but to go to the court and be my own lawyer. It never occurred to me that the landlord to whose courtesy I had been recommended would refuse to go with me; but when I asked him for his protection he begged to be excused, on the ground of being very busy and that he could be of no service to me. I do not wish any reader to infer from this that he was an exceptional Viennese hotel-keeper—that is, exceptionally ungentlemanly: he was, on the contrary, a fair representative both of his trade and his countrymen. Austrian military officers and diplomatic attachés of the government have won in fashionable society a reputation for extreme politeness and gallantry toward women; which may be true, as neither under such conditions costs any earnest sacrifice. But the rank and file of the middle class of Austrians, the class with which travellers have naturally most to do, are most brusque and ungracious in manner as well as in deed, unembellished with any hint of courtesy.
I enjoyed a fling at the landlord by expressing surprise at his refusal to accompany me to the police-court, adding maliciously that American gentlemen were not famous for polished manners, but there was not one mean enough in the whole country to refuse his protection to a lady, a guest under his own roof and in a strange land, where the help of friends was denied her. I then appealed to Kate to go with me, as it would only end the trouble sooner, and that I would never allow her to go to such a place alone, but with tears streaming from her eyes she resisted my entreaties, and I followed one of the men to the court: the other remained behind to watch Kate.