"Heltzendorff," he said, "I have been chatting with Von Pappenheim and his sister upon a little matter of business which closely concerns myself. I want you to leave in an hour's time and go to Hanover. In the Kirchröder Strasse, No. 16, out at Kleefeld there lives a certain man named Minckwitz—a Pole by birth. He has two nieces—one about twenty and the other two years older. With them you have no concern. All I want is that you engage a photographer, or, better, yourself take a snapshot of this man Minckwitz, and bring it to me. Be discreet and trust no one with the secret of your journey."
"Exactly. There is a doubt as to the man's identity, eh?"
"Willie" nodded in the affirmative.
Satisfied that I should at last see the mysterious person whose identity the Emperor had wished to establish, I set out from Oels on my long journey right across Germany.
In due course I arrived in Hanover, and found the house situate in the pleasant suburb. Here I found that "Willie's" suspicions were correct, and the man Minckwitz was living under the name of Sembach and pretending to be a musician. I watched, and very soon with my own camera took in secret a snapshot of the mysterious individual as he walked in the street. With this I left two days later on my return to Oels.
The photograph was that of a thin, narrow-faced, deep-eyed man, with a scraggy, pointed beard—a typical Pole, and when I handed it to "Willie" he held his breath.
"Look!" he cried, turning to Von Pappenheim and his sister, who were both present. "Look! There is no mistake! That is the man. What shall we do? No time must be lost. How can I act?"
Brother and sister exchanged glances blankly. From inquiries I had made in Hanover, it seemed that the man was a stranger, a music-master, who had arrived there about a month ago. I feared to make inquiry through the police, because my official capacity as personal-adjutant to the Crown-Prince was too well known, and suspicion might have thus been aroused.
The trio again held secret counsel, but I was not told the nature of their deliberations. All I knew was that the Crown-Prince was in some terrible and most dangerous difficulty.
That afternoon I met the girl Margarete walking alone in the grounds near the Schloss. The autumn sun was pleasant, though there was a sharp nip in the air, which told of the coming of the early Silesian winter. Most of the trees were already bare, and the ground was carpeted with the gold-brown leaves of the great beeches.