SECRET NUMBER EIGHT
HOW THE CROWN-PRINCE WAS BLACKMAILED
The Crown-Prince had accompanied the Emperor on board the Hohenzollern on his annual cruise up the Norwegian fjords, and the Kaiserin and the Crown-Princess were of the party.
I had been left at home because I had not been feeling well, and with relief had gone south to the Lake of Garda, taking up my quarters in that long, white hotel which faces the blue lake at Gardone-Riviera. A truly beautiful spot, where the gardens of the hotel run down to the lake's edge, with a long veranda covered with trailing roses and geraniums, peaceful indeed after the turmoil and glitter of our Court life in Germany.
One morning at luncheon, however, just as I had seated myself at my table set in the window overlooking the sunlit waters, a tall, rather thin-faced, bald-headed man entered, accompanied by an extremely pretty girl, with very fair hair and eyes of an unusual, child-like blue. The man I judged to be about fifty-five, whose blotchy face marked him as one addicted to strong liquors, and whose dress and bearing proclaimed him to be something of a roué. He walked jauntily to the empty table next mine, while his companion stared vacantly about her as she followed him to the place which the obsequious maître d'hôtel had indicated.
The stranger's eyes were dark, penetrating, and shifty, while there was something about the young girl's demeanour that aroused my interest. Her face, undeniably beautiful, was marred by a stare of complete vacancy. She glanced at me, but I saw that she did not see. It was as though her thoughts were far away, or else that she was under the spell of some weird fascination.
That strange, blank expression in her countenance caused me to watch her. On the one hand, the man had all the appearance of a person who had run the whole gamut of the vices; while the fair-haired, blue-eyed girl was the very incarnation of maiden innocence.
Perhaps it was because I kept my eyes upon her that the dark-eyed man knit his brows and stared at me in defiance. Instinctively I did not like the fellow, for as they started their meal I saw plainly the rough, almost uncouth, manner in which he treated her.
At first I believed that they might be father and daughter, but this suggestion was negatived when, on inquiry at the bureau, I was told that the man was Martinez Aranda, of Seville, and that his companion was his niece, Lola Serrano.
The latter always appeared exquisitely dressed, and the gay young men, Italian officers and others, were all eager to make her acquaintance. Yet it seemed to me that the man Aranda forbade her to speak to anyone. Indeed, I watched the pair closely during the days following, and could plainly discern that the girl went in mortal fear of him.