The
lady with the red hat, the incorruptible and savage Miss Spencer,
the unscrupulous and brilliant Jules, the dark, damp cellar, the
horrible little bedroom - these things were over. Thanks to Prince
Aribert and the Racksoles, he had emerged from them in safety.
He was able to resume his public and official career. The Emperor
had been informed of his safe arrival in London, after an
unavoidable delay in Ostend; his name once more figured in the
Court chronicle of the newspapers. In short, everything was
smothered over. Only - only Jules, Rocco, and Miss Spencer were
still at large; and the body of Reginald Dimmock lay buried in the
domestic mausoleum of the palace at Posen; and Prince Eugen had
still to interview Mr Sampson Levi.
That various matters lay heavy on the mind of Prince Eugen was
beyond question. He seemed to have withdrawn within himself.
Despite the extraordinary experiences through which he had
recently passed, events which called aloud for explanations and
confidence between the nephew and the uncle, he would say
scarcely a word to Prince Aribert. Any allusion, however direct, to
the days at Ostend, was ignored by him with more or less
ingenuity, and Prince Aribert was really no nearer a full solution of
the mystery of Jules' plot than he had been on the night when he
and Racksole visited the gaming tables at Ostend. Eugen was well
aware that he had been kidnapped through the agency of the
woman in the red hat, but, doubtless ashamed at having been her
dupe, he would not proceed in any way with the clearing-up of the
matter.
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