The Illustrious Prince Read online

  CHAPTER IV. MISS PENELOPE MORSE

  It was already a little past the customary luncheon hour at the Carlton,and the restaurant was well filled. The orchestra had played their firstselection, and the stream of incoming guests had begun to slacken. Ayoung lady who had been sitting in the palm court for at least half anhour rose to her feet, and, glancing casually at her watch, made her wayinto the hotel. She entered the office and addressed the chief receptionclerk.

  "Can you tell me," she asked, "if Mr. Hamilton Fynes is staying here? Heshould have arrived by the Lusitania last night or early this morning."

  It is not the business of a hotel reception clerk to appear surprisedat anything. Nevertheless the man looked at her, for a moment, with acurious expression in his eyes.

  "Mr. Hamilton Fynes!" he repeated. "Did you say that you were expectinghim by the Lusitania, madam?"

  "Yes!" the young lady answered. "He asked me to lunch with him heretoday. Can you tell me whether he has arrived yet? If he is in his room,I should be glad if you would send up to him."

  There were several people in the office who were in a position tooverhear their conversation. With a word of apology, the man came roundfrom his place behind the mahogany counter. He stood by the side of theyoung lady, and he seemed to be suffering from some embarrassment.

  "Will you pardon my asking, madam, if you have seen the newspapers thismorning?" he inquired.

  Without a doubt, her first thought was that the question savored ofimpertinence. She looked at him with slightly upraised eyebrows. She wasslim, of medium complexion, with dark brown hair parted in the middleand waving a little about her temples. She was irreproachably dressed,from the tips of her patent shoes to the black feathers in her Parishat.

  "The newspapers!" she repeated. "Why, no, I don't think that I have seenthem this morning. What have they to do with Mr. Hamilton Fynes?"

  The clerk pointed to the open door of a small private office.

  "If you will step this way for one moment, madam," he begged.

  She tapped the floor with her foot and looked at him curiously.Certainly the people around seemed to be taking some interest in theirconversation.

  "Why should I?" she asked. "Cannot you answer my question here?"

  "If madam will be so good," he persisted.

  She shrugged her shoulders and followed him. Something in the man'searnest tone and almost pleading look convinced her, at least, ofhis good intentions. Besides, the interest which her question hadundoubtedly aroused amongst the bystanders was, to say the least of it,embarrassing. He pulled the door to after them.

  "Madam," he said, "there was a Mr. Hamilton Fynes who came over by theLusitania, and who had certainly engaged rooms in this hotel, buthe unfortunately, it seems, met with an accident on his way fromLiverpool."

  Her manner changed at once. She began to understand what it all meant.Her lips parted, her eyes were wide open.

  "An accident?" she faltered.

  He gently rolled a chair up to her. She sank obediently into it.

  "Madam," he said, "it was a very bad accident indeed. I trust that Mr.Hamilton Fynes was not a very intimate friend or a relative of yours. Itwould perhaps be better for you to read the account for yourself."

  He placed a newspaper in her hands. She read the first few lines andsuddenly turned upon him. She was white to the lips now, and therewas real terror in her tone. Yet if he had been in a position to haveanalyzed the emotion she displayed, he might have remarked that therewas none of the surprise, the blank, unbelieving amazement whichmight have been expected from one hearing for the first time of such acalamity.

  "Murdered!" she exclaimed. "Is this true?"

  "It appears to be perfectly true, madam, I regret to say," the clerkanswered. "Even the earlier editions were able to supply the man's name,and I am afraid that there is no doubt about his identity. The captainof the Lusitania confirmed it, and many of the passengers who saw himleave the ship last night have been interviewed."

  "Murdered!" she repeated to herself with trembling lips. "It seems sucha horrible death! Have they any idea who did it?" she asked. "Has anyone been arrested?"

  "At present, no, madam," the clerk answered. "The affair, as you willsee if you read further, is an exceedingly mysterious one."

  She rocked a little in her chair, but she showed no signs of fainting.She picked up the paper and found the place once more. There were twocolumns filled with particulars of the tragedy.

  "Where can I be alone and read this?" she asked.

  "Here, if you please, madam," the clerk answered. "I must go back to mydesk. There are many arrivals just now. Will you allow me to send yousomething--a little brandy, perhaps?"

  "Nothing, thank you," she answered. "I wish only to be alone while Iread this."

  He left her with a little sympathetic murmur, and closed the door behindhim. The girl raised her veil now and spread the newspaper out onthe table before her. There was an account of the tragedy; there wereinterviews with some of the passengers, a message from the captain. Inall, it seemed that wonderfully little was known of Mr. Hamilton Fynes.He had spoken to scarcely a soul on board, and had remained for thegreater part of the time in his stateroom. The captain had not evenbeen aware of his existence till the moment when Mr. Hamilton Fyneshad sought him out and handed him an order, signed by the head of hiscompany, instructing him to obey in any respect the wishes of thishitherto unknown passenger. The tug which had been hired to meet him hadgone down the river, so it was not possible, for the moment, to say bywhom it had been chartered. The station-master at Liverpool knew nothingexcept that the letter presented to him by the dead man was a personalone from a great railway magnate, whose wishes it was impossible todisregard. There had not been a soul, apparently, upon the steamerwho had known anything worth mentioning of Mr. Hamilton Fynes or hisbusiness. No one in London had made inquiries for him or claimed his feweffects. Half a dozen cables to America remained unanswered.

  That papers had been stolen from him--papers or money--was evident fromthe place of concealment in his coat, where the lining had been tornaway, but there was not the slightest evidence as to the nature of thesedocuments or the history of the murdered man. All that could be done wasto await the news from the other side, which was momentarily expected.

  The girl went through it all, line by line, almost word by word.Whatever there might have been of relationship or friendship between herand the dead man, the news of his terrible end left her shaken, indeed,but dry-eyed. She was apparently more terrified than grieved, and nowthat the first shock had passed away, her mind seemed occupied withthoughts which may indeed have had some connection with this tragedy,but were scarcely wholly concerned with it. She sat for a long whilewith her hands still resting upon the table but her eyes fixed out ofthe window. Then at last she rose and made her way outside. Her friendthe reception clerk was engaged in conversation with one or two men, aconversation of which she was obviously the subject. As she opened thedoor, one of them broke off in the midst of what he was saying and wouldhave accosted her. The clerk, however, interposed, and drew her a stepor two back into the room.

  "Madam," he said, "one of these gentlemen is from Scotland Yard, andthe others are reporters. They are all eager to know anything about Mr.Hamilton Fynes. I expect they will want to ask you some questions."

  The girl opened her lips and closed them again.

  "I regret to say that I have nothing whatever to tell them," shedeclared. "Will you kindly let them know that?"

  The clerk shook his head.

  "I am afraid you will find them quite persistent, madam," he said.

  "I cannot tell them things which I do not know myself," she answered,frowning.

  "Naturally," the clerk admitted; "yet these gentlemen from Scotland Yardhave special privileges, of course, and there remains the fact that youwere engaged to lunch with Mr. Fynes here."

  "If it will help me to get rid of them," she said, "I will speak to therepresentative of Scotland
Yard. I will have nothing whatever to say tothe reporters."

  The clerk turned round and beckoned to the foremost figure in the littlegroup. Inspector Jacks, tall, lantern-jawed, dressed with the quietprecision of a well-to-do-man of affairs, and with no possiblesuggestion of his calling in his manner or attire, was by her sidealmost at once.

  "Madam," he said, "I understand that Mr. Hamilton Fynes was a friend ofyours?"

  "An acquaintance," she corrected him.

  "And your name?" he asked.

  "I am Miss Morse," she replied,--"Miss Penelope Morse."

  "You were to have lunched here with Mr. Hamilton Fynes," the detectivecontinued. "When, may I ask, did the invitation reach you?"

  "Yesterday," she told him, "by marconigram from Queenstown."

  "You can tell us a few things about the deceased, without doubt," Mr.Jacks said,--"his profession, for instance, or his social standing?Perhaps you know the reason for his coming to Europe?"

  The girl shook her head.

  "Mr. Fynes and I were not intimately acquainted," she answered. "Wemet in Paris some years ago, and when he was last in London, during theautumn, I lunched with him twice."

  "You had no letter from him, then, previous to the marconigram?" theinspector asked.

  "I have scarcely ever received a letter from him in my life," sheanswered. "He was as bad a correspondent as I am myself."

  "You know nothing, then, of the object of his present visit to England?"

  "Nothing whatever," she answered.

  "When he was over here before," the inspector asked, "do you know whathis business was then?"

  "Not in the least," she replied.

  "You can tell us his address in the States?" Inspector Jacks suggested.

  She shook her head.

  "I cannot," she answered. "As I told you just now, I have never had aletter from him in my life. We exchanged a few notes, perhaps, when wewere in Paris, about trivial matters, but nothing more than that."

  "He must at some time, in Paris, for instance, or when you lunched withhim last year, have said something about his profession, or how he spenthis time?"

  "He never alluded to it in any way," the girl answered. "I have not theslightest idea how he passed his time."

  The inspector was a little nonplussed. He did not for a moment believethat the girl was telling the truth.

  "Perhaps," he said tentatively, "you do not care to have your name comebefore the public in connection with a case so notorious as this?"

  "Naturally," the girl answered. "That, however, would not prevent mytelling you anything that I knew. You seem to find it hard to believe,but I can assure you that I know nothing. Mr. Fynes was almost astranger to me."

  The detective was thoughtful.

  "So you really cannot help us at all, madam?" he said at length.

  "I am afraid not," she answered.

  "Perhaps," he suggested, "after you have thought the matter over,something may occur to you. Can I trouble you for your address?"

  "I am staying at Devenham House for the moment," she answered.

  He wrote it down in his notebook.

  "I shall perhaps do myself the honor of waiting upon you a little lateron," he said. "You may be able, after reflection, to recall some smalldetails, at any rate, which will be interesting to us. At present we areabsurdly ignorant as to the man's affairs."

  She turned away from him to the clerk, and pointed to another door.

  "Can I go out without seeing those others?" she asked. "I really havenothing to say to them, and this has been quite a shock to me."

  "By all means, madam," the clerk answered. "If you will allow me, I willescort you to the entrance."

  Two of the more enterprising of the journalists caught them up upon thepavement. Miss Penelope Morse, however, had little to say to them.

  "You must not ask me any more questions about Mr. Hamilton Fynes," shedeclared. "My acquaintance with him was of the slightest. It is truethat I came here to lunch today without knowing what had happened. Ithas been a shock to me, and I do not wish to talk about it, and I willnot talk about it, for the present."

  She was deaf to their further questions. The hotel clerk handed her intoa taximeter cab, and gave the address to the driver. Then he went backto his office, where Inspector Jacks was still sitting.

  "This Mr. Hamilton Fynes," he remarked, "seems to have been what youmight call a secretive sort of person. Nobody appears to know anythingabout him. I remember when he was staying here before that he hadno callers, and seemed to spend most of his time sitting in the palmcourt."

  The inspector nodded.

  "He was certainly a man who knew how to keep his own counsel," headmitted. "Most Americans are ready enough to talk about themselves andtheir affairs, even to comparative strangers."

  The hotel clerk nodded.

  "Makes it difficult for you," he remarked.

  "It makes the case very interesting," the inspector declared,"especially when we find him engaged to lunch with a young lady of suchremarkable discretion as Miss Penelope Morse."

  "You know her?" the clerk asked a little eagerly.

  The inspector was engaged, apparently, in studying the pattern of thecarpet.

  "Not exactly," he answered. "No, I have no absolute knowledge of MissPenelope Morse. By the bye, that was rather an interesting address thatshe gave."

  "Devenham House," the hotel clerk remarked. "Do you know who livesthere?"

  The inspector nodded.

  "The Duke of Devenham," he answered. "A very interesting young lady, Ishould think, that. I wonder what she and Mr. Hamilton Fynes would havetalked about if they had lunched here today."

  The hotel clerk looked dubious. He did not grasp the significance of thequestion.