The Secrets of Potsdam

"Heltzendorff!" exclaimed the Crown-Prince, as he suddenly entered the room where I was busy attending to a pile of papers which had accumulated during our absence in Westphalia, and which had been sorted into three heaps by my assistant during our absence. "Do get through all those letters and things. Burn them all if you can. What do they matter?"

"Many of them are matters of grave importance. Here, for instance, is a report from the Chief of Military Intelligence in Washington."

"Oh, old Friesch! Tear it up! He is but an old fossil at best. And yet, Heltzendorff, he is designed to be of considerable use," he added. "His Majesty told me to-night that after his visit to England he has conceived the idea to establish an official movement for the improvement of better relations between Britain and Germany. The dear British are always ready to receive such movements with open arms. At Carlton House Terrace they strongly endorse the Emperor's ideas, and he tells me that the movement should first arise in commercial and shipping circles. Herr Ballin will generate the idea in his offices in London and the various British ports, while His Majesty has Von Gessler, the ex-Ambassador at Washington, in view as the man to bring forth the suggestion publicly. Indeed, to-night from the Wilhelmstrasse there has been sent a message to his schloss on the Mosel commanding him to consult with His Majesty. Von Bernstorff took his place at Washington a few months ago."

"But Von Gessler is an inveterate enemy of Britain," I exclaimed in surprise, still seated at my table.

"The world does not know that. The whole scheme is based upon Britain's ignorance of our intentions. We bring Von Gessler forward as the dear, good, Anglophile friend with his hand outstretched from the Wilhelmstrasse. Oh, Heltzendorff!" he laughed. "It is really intensely amusing, is it not?"

I was silent. I knew that the deeply-laid plot against Great Britain was proceeding apace, for had I not seen those many secret reports, and did I not possess inside knowledge of the evil intentions of the Emperor and his son.

"Get through all that – to-night if you can, Heltzendorff," the Crown-Prince urged. "The Crown-Princess leaves for Treseburg, in the Harz, to-morrow, and in the evening we go to Nice."

"To Nice!" I exclaimed, though not at all disinclined to spend a week or so on the Riviera.

"Yes," he said. "I have a friend there. The Riviera is only pleasant before the season, or after. One cannot go with the crowd in January or February. I have already given orders for the saloon to leave at eleven to-morrow night. That will give us ample time."

A friend there! I reflected. I, knowing his partiality to the eternal petticoat, could only suppose that the attraction in Nice was of the feminine gender.

"Then the lady is in Nice!" I remarked, for sometimes I was permitted, on account of my long service with the Emperor, to speak familiarly.

"Lady, no!" he retorted. "It is a man. And I want to get to Nice at the earliest moment. So get through those infernal documents. Burn them all. They are better out of the way," he laughed.

And, taking a cigarette from the golden box – a present to him from "Tino" of Greece – he lit it, and wishing me good night, strode out.

Just before eleven o'clock on the following night we left the Marmor Palace. His Imperial Highness travelled incognito as he always did when visiting France, assuming the name of Count von Grünau. With us was his personal valet, Schuler, the military secretary, Major Lentze, and Eckardt, the Commissioner of Secret Police for His Highness's personal protection, who travelled with us wherever we went. In addition, there was an under-valet, and Knof, the Crown-Prince's favourite chauffeur. When abroad cars were either bought and afterwards re-sold, or else hired, but Knof, who was a celebrated racing motorist and had driven in Prince Henry's tour of exploration through England, and who had gained many prizes on the various circuits, was always taken as "driver."

After a restless night – for there were many stoppages – I spent next day with the Crown-Prince in long and tiring discussions on military affairs as we travelled due south in the beautifully-fitted Imperial car, replete with its smoking saloon with wicker chairs, its four bathrooms, and other luxuries. I endeavoured to obtain from him some reason why we were proceeding to Nice, but to all my inquiries he was smilingly dumb. He noticed my eagerness, and I saw that he was amused by it.

Yet somehow, as we travelled towards the Italian frontier – for our road lay through Austria down to Milan, and thence by way of Genoa – he seemed to become unduly thoughtful and anxious.

Only a fortnight before he had had one of those ever-recurring and unseemly quarrels with his long-suffering wife.

"Cilli is a fool!" he had declared openly to me, after she had left the room in anger.

We had been busy arranging a programme of official visits in Eastern Germany, when suddenly the Crown-Princess entered, pale with anger, and disregarding my presence – for I suppose I was regarded as one who knew all the happenings of the palace, and whose discretion could be relied upon – began to demand fiercely an explanation of a certain anonymous letter which she held in her hand.

"Kindly read that!" she said haughtily, "and explain what it means!"

The Crown-Prince grinned idiotically, that cold, sinister expression overspreading his countenance, a look which is such a marked characteristic of his.

Then, almost snatching the letter from his young wife's fingers, he read it through, and with a sudden movement tore it up and flung it upon the carpet, saying:

"I refuse to discuss any unsigned letter! Really, if we were to notice every letter written by the common scum we should, indeed, have sufficient to do."

His wife's arched brows narrowed. Her pale, delicate face, in which the lines of care had appeared too prematurely, already betrayed fiercest anger.

"I happen to have inquired, and I now know that those allegations are correct!" she cried. "This dark-haired singer-woman, Irene Speroni, has attained great success on the variety stage in Italy. She is the star of the Sala Margherita in Rome."

"Well?" he asked in defiance. "And what of it, pray?"

"That letter you have destroyed tells me the truth. I received it a few days ago, and sent an agent to Italy in order to learn the truth. He has returned to-night. See!" And suddenly she produced a crannied snapshot photograph, of postcard size, of the Crown-Prince in his polo-playing garb, and with him a smartly-dressed young woman, whose features were in the shadow. I caught sight of that picture, because when he tossed it from him angrily without glancing at it, I picked it up and handed it back to the Crown-Princess.

"Yes," she cried bitterly, "You refuse, of course, to look upon this piece of evidence! I now know why you went to Wiesbaden. The woman was singing there, and you gave her a pair of emerald and diamond earrings which you purchased from Vollgold in Unter den Linden. See! Here is the bill for them!"

And again she produced a slip of paper.

At this the Crown-Prince grew instantly furious, and, pale to the lips, he roundly abused his long-suffering wife, telling her quite frankly that, notwithstanding the fact that she might spy upon his movements, he should act exactly as his impulses dictated.

That scene was, indeed, a disgraceful one, ending in the poor woman, in a frantic paroxysm of despair, tearing off the splendid necklet of diamonds at her throat – his present to her on their marriage – and casting it full into his face.

Then, realizing that the scene had become too tragic, I took her small hand, and, with a word of sympathy, led her out of the room and along the corridor.

As I left her she burst into a sudden torrent of tears; yet when I returned again to the Crown-Prince I found his manner had entirely changed. He treated his wife's natural resentment and indignation as a huge joke, and it was then that His Imperial Highness declared to me:

"Cilli is a fool!"

That sunny afternoon the Crown-Prince had sprawled himself on the plush lounge of the smoking car as the train travelled upon that picturesque line between Genoa and the French frontier at Ventimiglia, the line which follows the coast for six hours. With the tideless sapphire Mediterranean lapping the yellow beach on the one side and high brown rocks upon the other, we went through Savona, Albenga, the old-world Porto Maurizio to the glaring modern town of San Remo and palm-embowered Bordighera, that beautiful Italian Riviera that you and I know so well.

"Listen, Heltzendorff," his Highness exclaimed suddenly between the whiffs of his cigarette. "In Nice I may disappear for a day or two. I may be missing. But if I am, please don't raise a fuss about it. I'm incognito, and nobody will know. I may be absent for seven days. If I am not back by that time then you may make inquiry."

"But the Commissary of Police Eckardt! He will surely know?" I remarked in surprise.

"No. He won't know. I shall evade him as I've so often done before," replied His Imperial Highness. "I tell you of my intentions so that you may curb the activities of our most estimable friend. Tell him not to worry, and he will be paid a thousand marks on the day Count von Grünau reappears."

I smiled, for I saw the influence of the eternal feminine.

"No, Heltzendorff. You are quite mistaken," he said, reading my thoughts, and putting down his cigarette end. "There is no lady in this case. I am out here for secret purposes of my own. For that reason I take you into my confidence rather than that unnecessary inquiry should be made and some of those infernal journalists get hold of the fact that the Count von Grünau and the Crown-Prince are one and the same person. I was a fool to take this saloon. I ought to have travelled as an ordinary passenger, I know, but," he laughed, "this is really comfortable and, after all, what do we care what the world thinks – eh? Surely we can afford to laugh at it when all the honours of the game are already in our hands."

And at that moment we ran into the pretty, flower-decked station of San Remo, the place freshly painted for the attraction of the winter visitors who annually went south for sunshine.

His words mystified me, but I became even more mystified by his actions a few days later.

I was in ignorance that a fortnight before Hermann Hardt, one of His Highness's couriers, had left Potsdam and on arrival at Nice had rented for three months the fine Villa Lilas – the winter residence of the American millionaire leather merchant, James G. Jamieson, of Boston, who had gone yachting to Japan.

You know Nice, my dear Le Queux – you know it as well as I do, therefore you know the Villa Lilas, that big white mansion which faces the sea on Montboron, the hill road between the port of Nice and Villefranche. Half hidden among the mimosa, the palms, and grey-green olives, it is after the style of Mr. Gordon Bennett's villa at Beaulieu, with a big glass front and pretty verandas, with climbing geraniums flowering upon the terraces.

We soon settled there, for the household staff had arrived three days before, and on the evening of our arrival I accompanied the Crown-Prince down into the town to the Jetée promenade, the pier-pavilion where the gay cosmopolitan world disports itself to chatter, drink and gamble.

It was a glorious moonlit night, and "Willie," after strolling through the great gilded saloons, in one of which was a second-rate variety entertainment – the season not having yet commenced – went outside. We sat at the end of the pier smoking.

"Nice is dull as yet, is it not?" he remarked, for each year he always spent a month there incognito, the German newspapers announcing that he was away shooting. But "Willie," leading the gay life of the Imperial butterfly, much preferred the lively existence of the Côte d'Azur to the remote schloss in Thuringia or elsewhere.

I agreed with him that Nice had not yet put on the tinsel and pasteboard of her Carnival attractions. As you know, Carnival in Nice is gay enough, but, after all, it is a forced gaiety got up for the profit of the shops and hotels, combined with the "Cercle des Bains" of Monaco – the polite title of the Prince's gilded gambling hell.

We smoked together and chatted, as we often did when His Imperial Highness became bored. I was still mystified why we had come to the Riviera so early in the season, because the white and pale green paint of the hotels was not yet dry, and half of them not yet open.

Yet our coming had, no doubt, been privately signalled, because within half an hour of our arrival at the Villa Lilas a short, stout old Frenchman, with white, bristly hair – whom I afterwards found out was Monsieur Paul Bavouzet, the newly-appointed Prefect of the Department of Alpes-Maritimes – called to leave his card upon the Count von Grünau.

The Imperial incognito only means that the public are to be deluded. Officialdom never is. They know the ruse, and support it all the world over. His Highness the Crown-Prince was paying his annual visit to Nice, and the President had sent his compliments through his representative, the bristly-haired little Prefect.

Soon after eleven that night the Crown-Prince, after chatting affably with me, strolled back to the Promenade des Anglais, where Knof, the chauffeur, awaited us with a big open car, in which we were whizzed around the port and up to Montboron in a few minutes.

As I parted from the Crown-Prince, who yawned and declared that he was tired, he said:

"Ah! Heltzendorff. How good it is to get a breath of soft air from the Mediterranean! We shall have a port on this pleasant sea one day – if we live as long – eh?"

That remark showed the trend of events. It showed how, hand in hand with the Emperor, he was urging preparations for war – a war that had for its primary object the destruction of the Powers which, when the volcano erupted, united as allies.

The bright autumn days passed quite uneventfully, and frequently I went pleasant motor runs into the mountains with His Highness, up to the frontier at the Col di Tenda, to La Vésubie, Puget-Théniers, and other places. Yet I was still mystified at the reason of our sojourn there.

After we had been at the Villa Lilas about ten days I was one afternoon seated outside the popular Café de l'Opéra, in the Place Masséna, when a lady, dressed in deep mourning and wearing the heavy veil in French style, passed along the pavement, glanced at me, and then, hesitating, she turned, and, coming back, advanced to the little table in the corner whereat I was sitting.

"May I be permitted to have a word with you, Monsieur?" she asked in French, in a low, refined voice.

"Certainly," was my reply, and, not without some surprise, I rose and drew a chair for her.

She glanced round quickly, as though to satisfy herself that she would not be overheard, but, as a matter of fact, at that hour the chairs on the terraces of the café were practically deserted. At the same moment, viewing her closely, I saw that she was about twenty-four, handsome, dark-haired, with well-cut features.

"I know, Monsieur, that I am a complete stranger to you," she exclaimed with a smile, "but to me you are quite familiar by sight. I have passed you many times in Berlin and in Potsdam, and I know that you are Count von Heltzendorff, personal-adjutant to His Highness the Crown-Prince – or Count von Grünau, as he is known here in France."

"You know that!" I exclaimed.

She smiled mysteriously, replying:

"Yes. I – well, I happen to be a friend of His Highness."

I held my breath. So this pretty young Frenchwoman was one of my young Imperial master's friends!

"The fact is, Count," she went on, "I have travelled a considerable distance to see you. I said that I was one of the Crown-Prince's friends. Please do not misunderstand me. I know that he has a good many lady friends, but, as far as I am concerned, I have never been introduced to him, and he does not know me. I am his friend because of a certain friendliness towards him."

"Really, Madame, I don't quite understand," I said.

"Of course not," she answered, and then, glancing round, she added: "This place is a little too public. Cannot we go across to the garden yonder?"

At her suggestion I rose and walked with her to a quiet spot in the gardens, where we sat down, and I listened with interest to her.

She told me that her name was Julie de Rouville, but she would give no account of where she lived, though I took it that she was a young widow.

"I have ventured to approach you, Count, because I cannot approach the Crown-Prince," she said presently. "You probably do not know the true reason of his visit here to Nice?"

"No," I said. "I admit that I do not. Why is he here?"

"It is a secret of his own. But, curiously enough, I am aware of the reason, and that is why I have sought you. Would it surprise you if I told you that in a certain quarter in France it will, in a few days, be known that the German Emperor is establishing a movement for an entente between Germany and Britain, and that the whole affair is based upon a fraud? The Emperor wants no entente, but only war with France and with Britain. The whole plot will be exposed in a few days!"

"From what source have you derived this knowledge?" I asked, looking at her in amazement that she should know one of the greatest State secrets of Germany.

But she again smiled mysteriously, and said:

"I merely tell you this in order to prove to you that I am in possession of certain facts known to but few people."

"You evidently are," I said. "But who intends to betray the truth to France?"

"I regret, Count, that I cannot answer your question."

"If you are, as you say, the Crown-Prince's friend, it would surely be a friendly act to let us know the truth, so that steps may be taken, perhaps, to avoid the secret of Germany's diplomacy from leaking out to her enemies."

"All I can tell you, Count, is that the matter is one of gravest importance."

"But will you not speak openly, and give us the actual facts?"

"I will – but to His Imperial Highness alone," was her answer.

"You wish to meet him, then?" I asked, rather suspicious that it might after all be only a woman's ruse. And yet what she had said showed that she knew the Emperor's secret, for she had actually mentioned Von Gessler's name in connection with the pretended Anglo-German entente.

"If His Highness will honour me with an interview, then I will reveal all I know, and, further, will suggest a means of preventing the truth from leaking out."

"But you are French," I said.

"I have told you so," she laughed. "But probably His Highness will refuse to see Julie de Rouville, therefore I think it best if you show him this."

From her little gold chain-purse she produced a small, unmounted photograph of herself, and handed it to me.

"When he recognizes who wishes to see him he will fully understand," she said, in a quiet, refined voice. "A letter addressed to Julie de Rouville at the Post Restante at Marseilles will quickly find me."

"At Marseilles?" I echoed.

"Yes. I do not wish the letter to be sent to me here. From Marseilles I shall duly receive it."

I was silent for a few moments.

"I confess," I exclaimed at last. "I confess I do not exactly see the necessity for an interview with His Highness, when whatever you tell me – as his personal-adjutant – will be regarded as strictly in confidence."

Truth to tell, I was extremely suspicious of her. She might be desirous of meeting the Prince with some evil intent.

"I have already said, Count Heltzendorff, that I am His Highness's friend, and wish to approach him with motives of friendship."

"You wish for no payment for this information, eh?" I asked suspiciously, half believing that she might be a secret agent of France.

"Payment – of course not!" she answered, half indignantly. "Show that photograph to the Crown-Prince, and tell him that I apply for an interview."

Then, rather abruptly, she rose, and, thanking me, wished me good afternoon, and walked away, leaving me with her photograph in my hand.

The Crown-Prince was out motoring, and did not get back to the Villa until after seven o'clock.

As soon as I heard of his return I went to his room, and recounted my strange adventure with the dark-haired young woman in black. He became keenly interested, and the more so when I told him of her secret knowledge of the Kaiser's intended establishment of a bogus entente with Great Britain.

"She wishes to see you," I said. "And she told me to give you her photograph."

I handed it to him.

At sight of it his face instantly changed. He held his breath, and then examined the photograph beneath the light. Afterwards I noticed a strange, hard look at the corners of his mouth, while his teeth set themselves firmly.

Next second, however, he had recovered his self-possession, and with a low laugh said:

"Yes. Of course, I know her. She wants me to write to Julie de Rouville at the Post Restante at Marseilles, eh? H'm – I'll think it over."

And I could see that sight of the photograph had not only displeased him, but it also caused him very considerable uneasiness.

Late in the afternoon, two days later, His Highness, who had been walking alone, and who had apparently evaded the vigilance of the ever-watchful Eckardt, returned to the Villa with a stranger, a tall, rather thin, fair-haired man, undoubtedly a German, and the pair were closeted together, holding counsel evidently for a considerable time. Where His Highness met him I knew not, but when later on I entered the room I saw that the pair were on quite friendly terms.

His Highness addressed him as Herr Schäfer, and when he had left he told me that he was from the Wilhelmstrasse, and had been attached to the Embassy at Washington, and afterwards in London, "for affairs of the Press" – which meant that he was conductor of the German Press propaganda.

It seemed curious that the young man Schäfer should be in such high favour with the Crown-Prince.

I watched closely. Whatever was in progress was a strict secret between the pair. The more I saw of Hans Schäfer the more I disliked him. He had cruel eyes and heavy, sensuous lips – a coarse countenance which was the reverse of prepossessing, though I could see that he was a very clever and cunning person.

For a full fortnight the Crown-Prince and the man Schäfer were almost inseparable. Was it for the purpose of meeting Schäfer that we had gone to Nice? The man had been back from London about two months, and had, I learnt, been lately living in Paris.

One evening while strolling in the sunset by the sea along the tree-lined Promenade des Anglais, I suddenly encountered Julie de Rouville, dressed in mourning, a quiet, pathetic figure, just as we had last met.

I instantly recollected that since the evening when I had given her photograph to the Crown-Prince he had never mentioned her, and I could only believe that for some mysterious reason sight of the picture had recalled some distasteful memory.

"Ah, Count!" she cried, as I halted and raised my hat. "This is, indeed, a welcome meeting! I have been looking out for you for the past two days."

"I've been staying over at Cannes," was my reply. "Well?"

She indicated a seat, and upon it we sat together.

"I have to thank you for giving my photograph and message to His Highness," she said in that sweet, refined voice that I so well remembered.

"I trust that the Crown-Prince has written to you – eh?"

She smiled, a trifle sadly I thought.

"Well, no – " was her rather vague reply.

"Then how are you aware that I gave your message?"

She shook her head and again smiled.

"I had my own means of discovery. By certain signs I knew that you had carried out your promise," she said. "But as I have heard nothing, I wish you, if you will, to deliver another message – a very urgent one. Tell him I must see him, for I dread daily lest the truth of the Kaiser's real intentions be known at the Quai d'Orsay."

"Certainly," was my polite reply. "I will deliver your message this evening."

"Tell him that my sole desire is to act in the interests of the Emperor and himself," she urged.