Then I bade her farewell, and left her in the good hands of the caretaker.
On my return to Jermyn Street the Crown-Prince was in bed, sleeping soundly.
I remember standing at the window of that well-furnished bachelor's sitting-room—for the place was owned by an old German-American merchant, who, I expect, had a shrewd suspicion of the identity of the reckless young fellow named Lehnhardt who sometimes, through a well-known firm of house-agents, rented his quarters at a high figure. The Crown-Prince used eight different names when abroad incognito, Lehnhardt being one of them.
"His Highness is very tired," the valet declared to me, as he entered the room. "Before I got him to bed he asked for you. I said you had gone out."
"And what did he say?"
"Well, Count, all he said was, 'Ah, our dear Heltzendorff is always an early riser. He gets up before I go to bed!'" And the ever-faithful valet laughed grimly. When the Crown-Prince went upon those frequent debauches in the capitals of Europe, his valet always carried with him a certain drug, a secret known to the Chinese, an injection of which at once sobered him, and put both sense and dignity into him. I have seen him in the most extreme state of helpless intoxication at five in the morning, and yet at eight, he having received his injection, I have watched him mount his horse and ride at the head of his regiment to an inspection, as bright and level-headed as any trooper following.
The drug had a marvellous and almost instantaneous effect. But it was used only in case of great emergency, when, for instance, he was suddenly summoned by the Emperor, or perchance he had to accompany his wife to some public function.
That the drug had bad effects I knew quite well. I have often seen him pacing the room holding his hands to his head, when, three hours later, the dope was gradually losing its potency, leaving him inert and ill.
When the valet had retired, I stood gazing down into the growing life of Jermyn Street, deploring the state of society which had resulted in the pretty Violet Hewitt becoming, at twenty, a victim to opium.
Truly in the world of London, as in Berlin, there are many strange phases of life, and even I, familiar as I was with the gaieties of the capitals, and the night life of Berlin, the Montmartre in Paris, and the West End in London, here confess that when I discovered the pretty girl sleeping in that dirty bunk in that fetid atmosphere I was staggered.