"No. This is a man, Wilhelm Minckwitz, who poses as a musician."
I shook my head.
"You are quite certain that you have never heard the name? Try to recollect whether the Crown-Prince has ever mentioned him in your presence."
I endeavoured to recall the circumstance, for somehow very gradually I felt a distinct recollection of having once heard that name before.
"At the moment I fail to recall anything, Your Majesty," was my answer.
The Emperor knit his brows as though annoyed at my reply, and then grunted deeply in dissatisfaction.
"Remain here in Potsdam," he said. "Telegraph to the Crown-Prince recalling him at my orders, and I will cancel the inspection at Thorn. Tell the Crown-Prince that I wish to see him to-night immediately upon his return."
Then, noticing for the first time that the Emperor held a paper in his hand, I realized that by its colour it was one of those secret reports furnished for the Kaiser's eye alone—a report of one of the thousands of spies of Germany spread everywhere.
Minckwitz! I impressed that name upon my memory, and, being dismissed, bowed myself out of the Imperial presence.
Returning to the Marmor Palace I sent a long and urgent message over the private wire to "Willie" at Altona, repeating His Majesty's orders, and recalling him at once. Quite well I knew that such an unusual message would arouse His Highness's apprehension that for some offence or other he was about to receive a paternal castigation. But I could not be explicit, because I had no knowledge of the reason the Emperor was cancelling our engagement at Thorn.