A Dash for a Throne. Arthur W. Marchmont
and I did not see how to arrange matters.
I applied for leave, and went to Berlin. There was one man there who could help me—old Dr. Mein. He was a bachelor recluse, an Englishman who had been naturalized, and in the old days he had been in love with my mother. It was she who told me the tale just before her death, when urging me to trust him should I ever find myself in need of an absolutely reliable, level-headed friend. I knew that he loved me for the English blood in my veins. I told him what I had to do; but at first did not mention the cause. He listened intently, questioned me shrewdly, and then stopped to think.
"You want me to murder you, or at least give you the means of murdering yourself?" he said bluntly.
"If you don't help me, I shall do it without you, that's all," I returned.
He paused again to think, pursing up his lips, and fixing his keen blue eyes upon me.
"I have loved you like my own son, and you ask me to kill you?"
"My mother would have had me come to you, because I am in trouble."
"You have no right to be in trouble. You are no fool. You have all your father's wealth—millions of marks; you have your mother's English blood—which is much better; you have her brains—which is best of all; you have a noble profession—the sea; you enjoy the Imperial favor and friendship—a slippery honor, maybe; and you are certain of rapid promotion to almost any height you please. Why, then, should you want to die?"
"Because I have sacrificed everything by my reckless temper," I answered, and told him what had happened. "I have no option but to die," I concluded. "If you will not help me——" I broke the sentence and got up to go.
"I didn't say I wouldn't help you—I will." I sat down again. "You don't care how you die, so long as it's quickly?" I shook my head. "Very well. I have in my laboratory the bacilli of a deadly fever. I will inject the virus into your veins. In three days you will be in the fever's grip, and in less than a week you will be dead." I took off my coat and bared my arms to show my readiness. "I make only one condition. You must be ill here; I must watch the progress of the experiment."
"Nothing will suit me better," I returned.
He made the injection there and then, and gave me two days to be away and wind up my affairs; and when I returned to him he made another injection and put me to bed. That night I was in a raging fever. All the paraphernalia of a sick-bed were soon in evidence, and the following day it was known all over Berlin that the wealthy young Count von Rudloff was down in the grip of a fever at the house of a once well-known physician, Dr. Mein. The little house was besieged with callers. A few only were admitted. Von Augener was one, and he brought with him the Court physician.
I grew worse rapidly, and only in intermittent gleams of intelligence was I conscious of the lean, grizzled face and watchful blue eyes of the doctor bending over me, assuring me that I was a most interesting case, and rapidly growing worse. For three days this continued, until in a moment of consciousness I heard him say to the nurse:
"He cannot last through the night," and the woman turned and looked sympathetically toward the bed.
I tried to speak, but could not. I could scarcely move; but they noticed my restlessness, and the doctor came and bent over me.
"Am I dying?" I whispered.
"Yes. You must have courage. You are dying."
"I am glad. Thank you. I have no pain."
He turned away, and after a moment gave me my medicine. Then with a touch soft like a woman's he smoothed the bedclothes, and bending down put his lips to my forehead, and left me glad, as I had said, that the end had come thus calmly.
I must have become unconscious again almost directly after that, for I know nothing of what happened until I awoke gradually and found myself in a place that was pitch dark. I was lying on the floor, though it felt soft like a mattress, and when I stretched out my arm I touched a wall that was soft like the floor.
I was quick in jumping to a conclusion. The doctor had fooled me, and probably had fooled everybody else, about my illness and death. If I had ever been ill, I was quite well now, and I scrambled up and strode about the place, feeling all the walls and floor and everything within my reach. I soon knew where I was. It was the old fellow's padded room. I knew, too, that I could do no good by struggling or shouting or trying to get out of it. I must wait, and I sat down on the floor to think.
After what seemed like many hours an electric light was switched on, and I saw a sheet of paper pinned to the wall. It was a letter from the doctor.
"I have done what your mother would have wished. You have the makings of a real man in you, and you must not die. Every one thinks you dead; and not a soul suspects. Your funeral took place yesterday, amid all the pomp of Court mourning; and all the papers to-day are full of descriptions of your career, your illness, death, and funeral. But you will live to do yourself justice; if need be, in another name. Your next career you must make, however, and not merely inherit. But you are your mother's son, and will not flinch."
The old man had known me better than I knew myself. I had been glad to die; but the pulse of life runs strong in the twenties; and the shrewd old beggar was right. Half an hour later I was glad to live; and when he came to me I was quite ready to thank him for what he had done.
We had a long talk about my future, and he urged me to go to England.
"You can be an Englishman; indeed, you are one already. Your family must have rich and powerful friends there; and there you can make a career."
But I would not give my assent. I had no plans, and was in the mood to make none.
"I will see," I answered. "I am a dead man, and the dead are more the concern of Providence than the living. I will drift for a while in the back waters," and I shrugged my shoulders.
I made no plans. That night I left Berlin, and as the train whirled me southward I tried with resolute hand to make the barrier that shut out the old life so bullet-proof that not even the stinging thoughts of impotent remorse and regret could wound me. I was only human, however, and barely twenty-three; and the sorrow of my loneliness was like a cankered wound. I felt like a shipwrecked derelict waif on the wide callous sea of stranger humanity.
And like a derelict I drifted for a while, and accident determined a course for me. At Frankfort, where I stayed a considerable time, a chance meeting in a hotel gave me as a companion an actor, and in his room at the theatre one night he asked me if I would care to join his company. All life was to be but a burlesque for me, and, as it seemed the training might be useful, I consented.
I threw myself into the mimic business with ardor, and stayed with the company four years. Under the guise of professional enthusiasm I became a past master in the art of making up, and altered my appearance completely. I changed my voice until it was two full tones lower than by nature, and I practised an expression and accent altogether unlike my own. Under the tuition of a clever old acrobat, who had deformed himself until he was past work, I changed entirely the character of my walk and carriage. I cultivated assiduously marked peculiarities of gesture and manner; and by constant massage even the contour of my features was altered, and lines and wrinkles were brought with results that astonished me.
After some three years of this I tested these results by a visit to the only man who knew me to be alive—Dr. Mein. I wished him to know what I was doing, but was not willing to trust the secret on paper. I went to him in my professional name, Heinrich Fischer, and consulted him for about half an hour about an imaginary complaint, without his having an idea of my identity. Once or twice he looked at me with an expression of rather doubting inquiry; but he did not know me. He wrote me a prescription, and, rising to go, I laid a fee on his table.
Then I lingered on, and he glanced at me in polite surprise. I smiled; and he fixed his little glittering eyes on mine steadily, as if I were a lunatic.
"Have you any more bacilli to spare, doctor?" I whispered.
A start, a quick frown, and the closing together