Part 23

"I'm sorry," he said penitently. "But what's the latest news from the trenches?"

"Now the Duke tells me that my brother has entered the fatal castle ... you see that daring runs in the blood! Up to a week ago he had sent me a cable every day. Everything was well until Sunday. Then his messages stopped. All this week there has not been a word, not even answering my cables!"

Warren digested this in silence for a moment.

"Why did your Highness leave Spain, knowing all this?"

"Well, Mr. Jarvis, a part of the legend tells that my grandfather had drawn a secret map showing exactly where his treasure was located. It was not safe to let the public know where wealth was located, fifteen years ago, in Spain."

"From the extremely businesslike devotion of that ghost, it doesn't seem that conditions have improved in the district of your exalted estates!"

"Oh, Mr. Jarvis, can't you be serious? I learned from an old letter to my grandmother, from her husband the Prince, that this plan had been hidden in the back-clasp of a locket containing her miniature. Without letting my brother know of the secret, for fear that he would foolishly tell it, I engaged a secret-service man from Paris to look the matter up. When my grandparents died, much of the estate was sold--for the Spanish-American War had wrought havoc with the family income. That locket had been sold to an American collector, and I came to America just in time to save it from being sold to some museum. I pawned my mother's jewels to buy it. That was the locket which dropped from the trunk, in my bedroom last night."

"And you have the locket?"

"Yes--but not my brother!"

"Ah, then, my particular chore as vassal to this haunted family is to find your brother and solve the mystery? In other words, you want me to put this infernal, tin-plated, panhandling ghost out of his misery?"

"Yes ... Mr. Jarvis!" and the Princess was more humble than he had noticed her during the hours of their acquaintance. "Are you frightened by the ghost?"

"You asked that question before. Where I came from only negroes and poor whites fear the departed spirits. Perhaps this spirit is not as departed as circumstances would indicate. But, how about the Duke? What is his interest in the ghost?"

"He fears it, too. He has begged me to stay away from the wretched castle altogether. If it were not for my brother's future, and the fortune of the family--his family, and perhaps ... my family ... some day ... I would shun the place. We are not completely destitute, you know!"

Jarvis studied the luxurious furnishings of the cabin, the jewels and aristocratic modishness of the girl's attire, and nodded.

"I imagine you're not! But this high, exalted, and altogether superior cousin of yours is far from being a fool. He will want to know how, where, why you met me. And what he doesn't know, contrary to the usual theory, is apt to interfere with his sleep. Beware, your Highness, of men who cannot sleep o'night--they think altogether too shrewdly!"

The girl was worried.

"He will ask dreadful questions. I know him, Mr. Jarvis!"

"So do I. Will you tell him you have made of me a ... perfectly good vassal?"

"I think not--just yet," and there was a shyness in her manner.

Jarvis looked adown his nose, and there was a smile on the firm lips below it!

"By the way, Mrs. Princess--as Rusty so beautifully phrases it--just how should a vassal, a fine A-number-One vassal, address his liege-lady and the owner of his soul? What is the au fait procedure in this case? You know I am only an ignorant pig of an American!"

She hesitated, embarrassed, and then answered: "Highness--is correct!"

"Highness! I had imagined so--incidentally we were introduced by Fate on the eleventh floor, as I recollect. Tell me, Highness: a vassal doesn't amount to much, does he? I always considered him a piker!"

She was mystified. These phrases had not been in the curriculum of the exclusively proper English boarding-school.

"A piker--a soldier who carries a pike?"

"No, just a pawn in this human game of chess--along with the queens, and kings, and castles--and knights!... But I have known of a pawn saving a game, in the hands of an expert. By the way, and apropos of nothing-whatever-at-all, could a good, hard-working, reliable, moral, union-labeled vassal work his way up to a good job--such as a Duke or a Lord, or something like that?"

She caught the drift of his quizzical humor, and retorted in kind.

"You're an ambitious vassal. Such men have occasionally lost their heads--literally speaking. I'm afraid you wouldn't be content with anything less than a kingship."