City of Endless Night by Milo Hastings (best book reader txt) 📖

knew my mind was sound as a schoolboy's, and that this pretence of examination and treatment was only a blind. Evidently the Chemical Staff had failed to work the formulas I had given them and this psychic manipulator had been sent in here to filch the true formulas from my brain with his devilish art. I knew nothing of what progress the Germans might have made with hypnotism, but unless they had gone further than had the outer world, now that I was on my guard, I believed myself to be safe.

But there was yet one danger. I might be trapped in my sleep by an induced somnambulistic conversation. Happily I was fairly well posted on such things and believed that I could guard against that also. But the fear of the thing made me so nervous that I did not sleep all of the following night.

The doctor, evidently a keen observer, must have detected that fact from the sound of my breathing, for the lights were turned out and we slept in the pitchy blackness that only a windowless room can create.

"You did not sleep well," he remarked, as we breakfasted.

But I made light of his solicitous concern, and we passed another day in casual conversation.

As the sleeping period drew again near, the doctor said, "I will leave you tonight, for I fear my presence disturbs you because you misinterpret my purpose in observing you."

As the doctor departed, I noted that the mechanism of the hinges and the lock of the door were so perfect that they gave forth no sound. I was very drowsy and soon retired, but before I went to sleep I practised snapping off and on the light from the switch at the side of my bed. Then I repeated over and over to myself--"I will awake at the first sound of a voice."

This thought ingrained in my subconscious mind proved my salvation. I must have been sleeping some hours. I was dreaming of Marguerite. I saw her standing in an open meadow flooded with sunlight; and heard her voice as if from afar. I walked towards her and as the words grew more distinct I knew the voice was not Marguerite's. Then I awoke.

I did not stir but lay listening. The voice was speaking monotonously and the words I heard were the words of the protium formulas, the false ones I had given the Chemical Staff.

"But these formulas are not correct," purred the voice, "of course, they are not correct. I gave them to the Staff, but they will never know the real ones--Yes, the real ones--What are the real ones? Have I forgotten--? No, I shall never forget. I can repeat them now." Then the voice began again on one of the fake formulas. But when it reached the point where the true formula was different, it paused; evidently the Chemical Staff had found out where the difficulty lay. And so the voice had paused, hoping my sleeping mind would catch up the thread and supply the missing words. But instead my arm shot quickly to the switch. The solicitous Doctor Boehm, flooded with a blaze of light, glared blinkingly as I leaped from the bed.

"Oh, I was asleep all right," I said, "but I awoke the instant I heard you speak, just as I had assured myself that I would do before I fell asleep. Now what else have you in your bag of tricks?"

"I only came--" began the doctor.

"Yes, you only came," I shouted, "and you knew nothing about the work of the Chemical Staff on my formulas. Now see here, doctor, you had your try and you have failed. Your diagnosis of my mental condition is just as much a fraud as the formulas on which the Chemical Staff have been wasting their time--only it is not so clever. I fooled them and you have not fooled me. Waste no more time, but go back and report to His Majesty that your little tricks have failed."

"I shall do that," said Boehm. "I feared you from the start; your mind is really an extraordinary one. But where," he said, "did you learn how to guard yourself so well against my methods? They are very secret. My art is not known even to physicians."

"It is known to me," I said, "so run along and get your report ready." The doctor shook my hand with an air of profound respect and took his leave. This time I balanced a chair overhanging the edge of a table so that the opening of the door would push it off, and I lay down and slept soundly.

~4~

I was left alone in my prison until late the next day. Then came a guard who conducted me before His Majesty. None of the Chemical Staff was present. In fact there was no one with the Emperor but a single secretary.

His Majesty smiled cordially. "It was fitting, Herr von Armstadt, for me to order your confinement for your demand was audacious; not that what you asked was a matter of importance, but you should have made the request in writing and privately and not before the Chemical Staff. For that breach of etiquette I had to humiliate you that Royal dignity might be preserved. As for the fact that you kept the formulas secret, none need know that but the Chemical Staff and they will have nothing further to say since you made fools of them." His Majesty laughed.

"As for the request you made, I have decided to grant it. Nor do I blame you for making it. The Princess Marguerite is a very beautiful girl. She is waiting now nearby. I should have sent for her sooner, but it was necessary to make an investigation regarding her birth. The unfortunate Princess Fedora never confessed the father. But I have arranged that, as you shall see."

The Emperor now pressed his signal button and a door opened and Marguerite was ushered into the room. I started in fear as I saw that she was accompanied by Dr. Zimmern. What calamity of discovery and punishment, I wondered, had my daring move brought to the secret rebel against the rule of the Hohenzollern?

Marguerite stepped swiftly toward me and gave me her hand. The look in her eyes I interpreted as a warning that I was not to recognize Zimmern. So I appeared the stranger while the secretary introduced us.

"Dr. Zimmern," said His Majesty, "was physician to Princess Fedora at the time of the birth of the Princess Marguerite. She confessed to him the father of her child. It was the Count Rudolph who died unmarried some years ago. There will be no questions raised. Our society will welcome his daughter, for both the Count Rudolph and the Princess Fedora were very popular."

During this speech, Dr. Zimmern sat rigid and stared into space. Then the secretary produced a document and read a confession to be signed by Zimmern, testifying to these statements of Marguerite's birth.

Zimmern, his features still unmoved, signed the paper and handed it again to the secretary.

His Majesty arose and held out his hand to Marguerite. "I welcome you," he said, "to the House of Hohenzollern. We shall do our best to atone for what you have suffered. And to you, Herr von Armstadt, I extend my thanks for bringing us so beautiful a woman. It is my hope that you will win her as a wife, for she will grace well the fortune that your great genius brings to us. But because you have loved her under unfortunate circumstances I must forbid your marriage for a period of two years. During that time you will both be free to make acquaintances in Royal Society. Nothing less than this would be fair to either of you, or to other women that may seek your fortune or to other men who may seek the beauty of your princess."

CHAPTER X A GODDESS WHO IS SUFFERING FROM OBESITY AND A BRAVE MAN WHO IS AFRAID OF THE LAW OF AVERAGES ~1~

It was not till we had reached Marguerite's apartment that Zimmern spoke. Then he and Marguerite both embraced me and cried with joy.

"Ah, Armstadt," said the old doctor, "you have done a wonderful thing, a wonderful thing, but why did you not warn us?"

"Yes," I stammered, "I know. You mean the books. It worried me, but, you see, I did not plan this thing. I did not know what I should do. It came to me like a flash as the Emperor was conferring the honours upon me. I had hoped to use my power to make him do my bidding, and yet we had contrived no way to use that power in furtherance of our great plans to free a race; but I could at least use it to free a woman. Let us hope that it augurs progress to the ultimate goal."

"It was very noble, but it was dangerous," replied Zimmern. "It was only through a coincidence that we were saved. Herr von Uhl told me that same day what you had demanded. I saw Hellar immediately and he declared a raid on Marguerite's apartment. But he came himself with only one assistant who is in his confidence, and they boxed the books and carted them off. They will be turned in as contraband volumes, but the report will be falsified; no one will ever know from whence they came."

"Then the books are lost to you," I said; "of that I am sorry, and I worried greatly while I was imprisoned."

"Yes," said Zimmern, "we have lost the books, but you have saved Marguerite. That will more than compensate. For that I can never thank you enough."

"And you were called into the matter, not," I said, "as Marguerite's friend, but as the physician to her mother?"

"They must have looked up the record," replied Zimmern, "but nothing was said to me. I received only a communication from His Majesty commanding me as the physician to Marguerite's mother at the time of Marguerite's birth, to make statement as to her fatherhood."

"But why," I asked, "did you not make this confession before, since it enabled Marguerite to be restored to her rights?"

The old doctor looked pained at the question. "But you forget," he said, "that it is the power of your secret and not my confession that has restored Marguerite. The confession is only a matter of form, to satisfy the wagging tongues of Royal Society."

"Do you mean," I asked, "that she will not be well received there because she was born out of wedlock?"

"Not at all," replied Zimmern; "it was the failure to confess the father, not the fact of her unwedded motherhood, that brought the punishment. There are many love-children born on the Royal Level and they suffer only a failure of inheritance of wealth from the father. But if they be girls of charm and beauty, and if, as Marguerite now stands credited, they be of rich Royal blood, they are very popular and much sought after. But without the record of the father they cannot be admitted into Royal Society, for the record of the blood lines would be lost, and that, you see, is essential. Social precedent, the value in the matrimonial market, all rest upon it. Marguerite is indeed fortunate; with His Majesty's signature attesting my confession, she has nothing more to fear. But I daresay they shall try their best to win her from you for some shallow-minded prince."

"But when," I asked, "is she to go? His Majesty seemed very gracious, but do you realize that I still possess my secret of the protium formulas?"

"And do you still hesitate to give them up?" asked Marguerite.

"For your freedom, dear, I shall reveal them gladly."

"But," cried Marguerite, "you must not give them up just for me,--if there is any way you can use them for our great plan."

"Nothing," spoke up Zimmern, "could be gained now by further secrecy but trouble for us all; and by acceding, both you and Marguerite win your places on the Royal Level, where you can better serve our cause. That is, if you are still with us. It may be harder for you, now that you have won the richest privileges that Germany has to offer, to remember those who struggle in the darkness."

"But I shall remember," I said, giving him my hand.

"I believe you will," said Zimmern feelingly, "and I know I can count on Marguerite. You will both have opportunities to see much of the officers of the Submarine Service. The German race may yet be freed from this sunless prison, if you can find one among them who can be won to our cause."

~2~

I reported the next morning to the Chemical Staff, by whom I was treated with deferential respect. I was immediately installed in my new office, as Director of the Protium Works. While I