'But it'll be all over New York
to-morrow morning, all the same. The worst of it is that Babylon
has gone off to Switzerland.'
'Why?'
'Don't know. Sudden fancy, I guess, for his native heath.'
'What difference does it make to you?'
'None. Only I feel sort of lonesome. I feel I want someone to lean
up against in running this hotel.'
'Father, if you have that feeling you must be getting ill.'
'Yes,' he sighed, 'I admit it's unusual with me. But perhaps you
haven't grasped the fact, Nella, that we're in the middle of a rather
queer business.'
'You mean about poor Mr Dimmock?'
'Partly Dimmock and partly other things. First of all, that Miss
Spencer, or whatever her wretched name is, mysteriously
disappears. Then there was the stone thrown into your bedroom.
Then I caught that rascal Jules conspiring with Dimmock at three
o'clock in the morning. Then your precious Prince Aribert arrives
without any suite - which I believe is a most peculiar and wicked
thing for a Prince to do - and moreover I find my daughter on very
intimate terms with the said Prince. Then young Dimmock goes
and dies, and there is to be an inquest; then Prince Eugen and his
suite, who were expected here for dinner, fail to turn up at all - '
'Prince Eugen has not come?'
'He has not; and Uncle Aribert is in a deuce of a stew about him,
and telegraphing all over Europe. Altogether, things are working
up pretty lively.
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