An hour later I reported again at the Imperial Palace, was granted audience of the Emperor, and gave him the verbal reply.
His Majesty uttered no word, merely nodding his head slowly in approval.
Next afternoon a painful sensation was caused throughout Berlin when the Abendpost published the news that Count von Leutenberg, the man so recently promoted by the Emperor, and his pretty wife had both been found dead in their room. During the night they had evidently burned some papers, for the tinder was found in the stove, and having agreed to die together, they being so much attached during life, they had both taken prussic acid in some wine, the bottle and half-emptied glasses being still upon the table.
The romantic affair, the truth of which I here reveal for the first time, was regarded by all Berlin as an inexplicable tragedy. The public are still unaware of how those intercepted letters contained serious warnings to the British Government of the Emperor's hostile intentions towards Britain, and the probable date of the outbreak of war. Indeed, they recounted a private conversation which the Countess had overheard between the Kaiser and Count Zeppelin, repeating certain opprobrious epithets which the All-Highest had bestowed upon one or two British statesmen, and she also pointed out the great danger of a pending rupture between the two Powers, as well as explaining some details regarding the improved Zeppelins in course of construction secretly on Lake Constance, and certain scandals regarding the private life of the Crown-Prince.
It was for the latter reason that the heir, aided by the War-Lord, took his revenge in a manner so crafty, so subtle, and so typical of the innate cunning of the Hohenzollerns.
Thus the well-meant warnings of one of your good, honest Englishwomen never reached the unsuspicious address to which they were sent, and thus did "Willie"—who, as I afterwards discovered, devised that subtle vengeance—act as the Emperor's catspaw.
SECRET NUMBER TWO
THE CROWN-PRINCE'S REVENGE
The Trautmann affair was one which caused a wild sensation at Potsdam in the autumn of 1912.