Suppose the clock be set back four-and-twenty hours, and behold now the Baron von Blitzenberg, the diplomatist and premier baron of Bavaria, engaged in unhappy argument with himself. Unhappy, because his reason, though so carefully trained from the kindergarten upward, proved unable to combat the dismal onsets of superstition.
“Pooh! who cares for an old picture?” Reason would reiterate.
“It is an omen,” said Superstition simply; and Reason stood convicted as an empty braggart.
But if Time be the great healer, Dinner is at least a clever quack, and when he and old Mr. Rentoul had consumed well-nigh a bottle and a half of their host's port between them, the outlook became much less gloomy. A particularly hilarious evening in the drawing-room completed the triumph of mind over what he was now able to term “jost nonsense,” and he slept that night as soundly as the Count was simultaneously slumbering in Sir Justin's bed-room. And there was no unpleasant awakening in the Baron's case. On the contrary, all nature seemed in a conspiracy to make the last day of his adventure pleasant. The sun shone brightly, his razors had an excellent edge, sausages were served for breakfast, and when he joined the family afterwards he found them as affectionately kind as a circle of relations. In fact, the Baron had dropped more than one hint the night before of such a nature that they had some reason for supposing relationship imminent. It is true Eva was a little disappointed that the actual words were not yet said, and when he made an airy reference to paying a farewell call that morning upon their neighbors at Lincoln Lodge, she exhibited so much disapproval in her air that he said at once—
“Ach, vell, I shall jost go after lonch and be back in an hour and a half. I jost vish to say good-bye, zat is all.”
Little guessing how much was to hang upon this postponement, he drove over after luncheon with a mind entirely reassured. With only an afternoon to be safely passed, no mishap, he was sure, could possibly happen now. If indeed the Maddisons chose to be offended with him, why, then, his call would merely be the briefer and he would recommend Eva for the post of Lady Tulliwuddle without qualification. It was his critics who had reason to fear, not he.
Miss Maddison was at home, the staff of footmen assured him, and, holding his head as high as a chieftain should, he strode into her sanctuary.
“Do I disturb you?”
He asked this with a quicker beating heart. Not Eleanor alone, but her father and Ri confronted him, and it was very plain to see that a tempest was in the brewing. Her eyes were bright with tears and indignation; their brows heavy with formidable frowns. At the first moment of his entering, extreme astonishment at seeing him was clearly their dominant emotion, and as evidently it rapidly developed into a sentiment even less hospitable.
“Why, this beats the devil!” ejaculated Mr. Maddison; and for a moment this was the sole response to his inquiry.
The next to speak was Ri—
“Show it him, Poppa! Confront him with the evidence!”
With ominous deliberation the millionaire picked up a newspaper from the floor, where apparently it had been crumpled and flung, smoothed out the creases, and approached the Baron till their noses were in danger of collision. While executing this manoeuvre the silence was only broken by the suppressed sobbing of his daughter. Then at last he spoke.
“Our mails, sir, have just arrived. This, sir, is 'The Times' newspaper, published in the city of London yesterday morning.”
He shook it in the Baron's face with a sudden vehemence that caused that nobleman to execute an abrupt movement backward.
“Take it,” continued the millionaire—“take it, sir, and explain this if you can!”
So confused had the Baron's mind become already that it was with difficulty he could decipher the following petrifying announcement—
“Tulliwuddle—Herringay.—In London, privately, Lord Tulliwuddle to Constance, daughter of Robert Herringay.”
The Baron's brain reeled.
“Here is another paragraph that may interest you,” pursued Mr. Maddison, turning the paper outside in with an alarmingly vigorous movement, and presenting a short paragraph for the Baron's inspection. This ran—
“PEER AND ACTRESS.
“As announced in our marriage column, the wedding took place yesterday, privately, of Lord Tulliwuddle, kinsman and heir of the late peer of that name, so well known in London and Scottish society, and Miss Constance Herringay, better known as 'Connie Fitz Aubyn,' of the Gaiety Theatre. It is understood that the young couple have departed for the Mediterranean.”
In a few seconds given him to prepare his mind, the Baron desperately endeavored to imagine what the resourceful Bunker would say or do under these awful circumstances.
“Well, sir?” said Mr. Maddison.
“It is a lie!”
“A lie?”
Ri laughed scornfully.
“Mean to say no such marriage took place?”
“It vas not me.”
“Who was it, then?”
“Anozzer man, perhaps.”
“Another Lord Tulliwuddle?” inquired the millionaire.
“Zey have made a mistake mit ze name. Yes, zat is how.”
“Can it be possible?” cried Eleanor eagerly, her grief for the moment forgotten.
“No,” said her father; “it is not possible. The announcement is confirmed by the paragraph. A mistake is inconceivable.”
The Baron thought he perceived a brilliant idea.
“Ach, it is ze ozzer Tollvoddle!” he exclaimed. “So! zat is it, of course.”
“You mean to say there is another peerage of Tulliwuddle?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Fetch Debrett, Ri!”
But Ri had already not only fetched Debrett, but found the place.
“A darned lie. Thought so,” he observed succinctly.
The luckless diplomatist was now committed to perdition.
“It is not in ze books,” he exclaimed. “It is bot a baronetcy.”
“A baronetcy!”
“And illegitimate also.”
“Sir,” burst forth Ri, “you are a thundering liar! Is this your marriage notice?”
The Baron changed his tactics.
“Yes!” he declared.
Eleanor screamed.
“Don't fuss, Eleanor,” said her father kindly. “That ain't true, anyhow. Why, the day before yesterday he was throwing that darned hammer.”
“Which came down last night in our yard with the head burst!” added Ri contemptuously. “Found you out there too!”
“Is that so!” exclaimed his father.
“That is so, sir!”
The three looked at him, and it was hard to say whether indignation or contempt was more prominent in their faces. This was more than he could endure.
“I vill not be so looked at!” he cried; “I vill leave you!”
“No you won't!” said Ri.
And the Baron saw his retreat cut of by the athletic and determined young man.
“Before you leave, we have one or two questions to ask you,” said Mr. Maddison. “Are you Lord Tulliwuddle, or are you not?”
“Yes!—No!” replied the Baron.
“Which, sir?”
Expanding his chest, he made the awe-inspiring announcement—
“I am moch greater zan Tollyvoddle! I am ze Baron Rudolph von Blitzenberg!”
“Another darned lie!” commented Ri.
Mr. Maddison laughed sardonically; while Eleanor, with flashing eyes, now joined in the attack upon the hapless nobleman.
“You wretched creature! Isn't it enough to have shammed to be one peer without shamming to be another?”
“Bot I am! Ja, I swear to you! Can you not see zat I am noble?”
“Curiously enough we can't,” replied Mr. Maddison.
But his daughter's scepticism was a little shaken by the fervor of his assurances.
“But, Poppa, perhaps he may be a German peer.”
“German waiter, more likely!” sneered Ri. “What shall we do with him? Tar and feathers, I guess, would just about suit his complaint.”
“No, Ri, no,” said his father cautiously. “Remember we are no longer beneath the banner of freedom. In this benighted country it might lead into trouble. Guess we can find him accommodation, though, in that bit of genuine antique above the harness-room. It's fitted with a very substantial lock. We'll make Dugald M'Culloch responsible for this BARON till the police take him over.”
Vain were the Baron's protests; and upon the appearance of Dugald M'Culloch, fisherman and factotum to the millionaire, accompanied by three burly satellites, vain, he perceived, would be the most desperate resistance. He plead the privileges of a foreign diplomatist, threatened a descent of the German army upon Lincoln Lodge, guaranteed an intimate acquaintance with the American ambassador—“Who vill make you sorry for zis!” but all without moving Mr. Maddison's resolution. Even Eleanor whispered a word for him and was repulsed, for he overheard her father replying to her—
“No, no, Eleanor; no more a diplomatist than you would have been Lady Tulliwuddle. Guess I know what I'm doing.”
Whereupon the late Lord Tulliwuddle, kilt and all, was conveyed by a guard of six tall men and deposited in the bit of genuine antique above the harness-room. This proved to be a small chamber in a thick-walled wing of the original house, now part of the back premises; and there, with his face buried in his hands, the poor prisoner moaned aloud—
“Oh, my life, she is geblasted! I am undone! Oh, I am lost!”
“Will it be so bad as that, indeed?”
He looked up with a start, and perceived Dugald, his jailor, gazing upon him with an expression of indescribable sagacity.
“The master will be sending me with his car to tell the folks at Hechnahoul,” added Dugald.
Still the Baron failed to comprehend the exchange of favors suggested by his jailor's sympathetic voice.
“Go, zen!” he muttered, and bent his head.
“You will not be wishing to send no messages to your friends?”
At last the prisoner understood. For a sovereign Dugald promised to convey a note to the Count; for five he undertook to bribe the chauffeur to convey him to The Lash, when he learned where that gentleman was to be found. And he further decided to be faithful to his trust, since, as he prudently reflected—
“If he will be a real chentleman after all it shall not be well to be hard with him. And if he will not be, nobody shall know.”
The Baron felt a trifle less hopeless now, yet so black did the prospect remain that he firmly believed he should never be able to raise his head again and meet the gaze of his fellow-men; not at least if he stayed in that room till the police arrived.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg