Part 17

The detective nodded to the porter, who brushed close by the Princess with his cargo.

"Bon voyage!" she said with a smile.

"What's that?" asked the detective.

"I merely called my maid. You're an unusually impertinent and inquisitive man. In my country gentlewomen are shown some degree of courtesy, even by hotel servants," she remarked icily.

The detective's ruddy face grew redder.

"Well, I dunno about your country, whatever that is. But in this country, and in this hotel there don't nothin' get by me. That's all. Come on in, boys."

Two bluecoats entered the room, gazed awkwardly about, and walked to the window to peer down at the street. Then they passed out, not without, it must be admitted, an envious glance at the collection of jewels on the table.

As the door closed behind them, her Serene Highness turned toward Nita, as she relaxed in the chair by the dressing-table.

"You may dress my hair, child. I wonder how the door was broken?"

"Ah, madame," was the guileless response. "Quién sabe?"

OVER THE SEA AND FAR AWAY

That journey to the Mauretania was never to be forgotten by Warren Jarvis; and yet so weird, bruising, jumbling, and altogether horrible was it, that he could never distinctly remember its details.

With hands stretched tensely against the corners of the trunk, he warded off as best he could the shocks of the skilled baggage-breakers along the route. Again and again, an unexpected twist would bang his throbbing head against the adamantine sides, and with a wince, a sharp, in-drawn breath, he would hold himself "together" for one more bump!

The air was stifling; yet the foresight of cutting the holes gave him enough oxygen to maintain his senses. At last, after æons of suffering which reminded him of nothing so much as his initiation into the college fraternity, he felt himself being dragged up the side of the great ocean greyhound.

More jolts, more rolls and bangs, and at last, with muscles wrenched, a swollen forehead and nerves aquiver, there was rest.

"I'm in her cabin at last--and now for a graceful exit!" he told himself, with an enforced jocularity. But this was no easy task. He spent a full half-hour, working and prying with the shears against the lock which imprisoned him with indomitable force from the outside of the iron-and-leathern prison.

Upon the outer deck of the great turbiner, the Princess nervously fought her way through the great throng of voyagers and their friends. Nita was close by her side. It seemed impossible to capture a steward who was not busy with the bearing of bouquets and wine baskets. In other circumstances this young personage would have been furious at the lack of respect which she had been educated to expect from the throngs of her own country.

But to-day her only anxiety was to find her elusive quarters for the strange cruise, to learn whether or not her new knight-errant were alive or dead from the rigors of his escape.

At last, with the aid of an extravagant largesse, she was conducted to her staterooms.

As she entered the parlor of her luxurious suite, the first sight which caught her eye was the trunk, inverted! The printed sign of direction, "This End up with Care," were upside down!

She gasped, and looked nervously about to note the expression upon the face of Nita. That young woman was busy studying the handsome features of the ingratiating bedroom-steward. So engrossed was she that she stumbled over the elevated sill of the door from the promenade deck.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, miss!" apologized the steward. "Did you hurt yourself? These doors are always troublesome until you get used to them. But they are necessary to keep out the water in rough weather."

The Princess was thinking only of the opportunity to open the fateful trunk.

"You don't anticipate a bad passage, steward?"

"Rather uncertain, ma'am, at this time of the year," and he busied himself adjusting the hand luggage and arranging the chairs. "But your location is good. You'll find the Mauretania as steady as a parish church. Here is the clothes press, ma'am, and the other rooms are off there. It's quite the finest suite on the boat, ma'am."

The steward looked about ingratiatingly, then he turned toward the door.

"If you want anything, ma'am--there is the telephone.... I'll place your trunk, if you please, ma'am!"

He started to drag the trunk to the side of the cabin, but the Princess intervened.