Okewood of the Secret Service [64]
was very merry that night. He let me take the jewel from its case and hold it in my hands. Then I fastened it in my hair before the mirror and turned to show myself to the Prince and his companion.
"'Donnerwetter! said Willie. 'It looks wonderful in your hair, Marcelle!'
"Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he cried:
"'Erich! What do you say, Marcelle is a Pole. She shall have the Star of Poland and wear it in memory of me!'
"The other thought this a famous idea, and so the jewel passed into my hands. That same evening I resolved that it should be a sacred duty on my part to keep it in safety until I could hand it back to the lawful sovereign of an independent Poland.
"I was very unhappy at Metz until the Star of Poland came to comfort me. When I was alone, I used to take it from its case and feast my eyes upon it. I made many attempts to get away, but the Prince would never let me go, though he had long since tired of me and I was merely one of his harem of women. Pfui!"
She gave an exclamation of disgust.
"It was the Crown Princess who eventually came to my rescue," she continued. "Long-suffering wife as she is, the stories that came to her ears from Metz were such that she went to the Emperor and declared that she would insist upon a divorce. There was a great scandal. The Prince's headquarters were moved and at length I got my release.
"I had no money. This was a detail which the Prince overlooked. But I wanted to resume my stage work, so, with great difficulty, through the influence of the Prince, I obtained a passport to Holland and from there got across to England.
"I had hoped to turn my back once and for all on my connection with the Prince. But your German Secret Service had been warned about me. The Imperial Authorities were obviously afraid that I might tell tales out of school. Scarcely had I arrived in London when a man who called himself Bryan Mowbury, but who looked and spoke like a German, came to see me and said he had been instructed to 'look after me.' What that meant, I was soon to discover. In a very few days I found that I was under the supervision of your Secret Service here. In fact, Mowbury gave me to understand that any indiscretion on my part as to my stay at Metz would result in my immediate denunciation to the English police as a spy.
"My friend, I had no alternative. I am not German; I am not English; I am a Pole. I have good friends in Germany, I have good friends in England, and their quarrels are not mine. I held my peace about the past and submitted to the incessant watch which Mowbury and his friends kept on my movements.
"And then one day I had a letter. It was from Count Plettenbach, the Crown Prince's aide-de-camp, as I knew by the hand-writing, for it was signed with an assumed name. In this letter the Count, 'on behalf of a mutual friend,' as he put it, requested me to hand back to a certain Mr. Mortimer, his accredited representative, 'Erich's present.' There were cogent reasons, it was added, for this unusual request.
"I sent no reply to that letter, although an address in Switzerland was given to which an answer might be despatched. I was resolved, come what may, not to part with the Star of Poland. When Mortimer came, five days later, I told him the jewel was not mine to hand over, that it was part of the regalia of Poland and that I would never give it up.
"Mortimer replied that the German and Austrian Governments had decided to restore the independence of Poland, that probably an Austrian Archduke would be made king and that it was essential that the Star of Poland should be restored in order to include it in the regalia for the Coronation. But I knew what this Austro-German kingdom of Poland was to be, a serf state with not a shadow of that liberty for which every Pole is longing. Since I have been in England, I have kept in touch with the Polish political organizations in this country. Rass, as he calls himself, the landlord of this inn, is one of the most prominent of the Polish leaders in England.
"Mortimer reasoned with me in
"'Donnerwetter! said Willie. 'It looks wonderful in your hair, Marcelle!'
"Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he cried:
"'Erich! What do you say, Marcelle is a Pole. She shall have the Star of Poland and wear it in memory of me!'
"The other thought this a famous idea, and so the jewel passed into my hands. That same evening I resolved that it should be a sacred duty on my part to keep it in safety until I could hand it back to the lawful sovereign of an independent Poland.
"I was very unhappy at Metz until the Star of Poland came to comfort me. When I was alone, I used to take it from its case and feast my eyes upon it. I made many attempts to get away, but the Prince would never let me go, though he had long since tired of me and I was merely one of his harem of women. Pfui!"
She gave an exclamation of disgust.
"It was the Crown Princess who eventually came to my rescue," she continued. "Long-suffering wife as she is, the stories that came to her ears from Metz were such that she went to the Emperor and declared that she would insist upon a divorce. There was a great scandal. The Prince's headquarters were moved and at length I got my release.
"I had no money. This was a detail which the Prince overlooked. But I wanted to resume my stage work, so, with great difficulty, through the influence of the Prince, I obtained a passport to Holland and from there got across to England.
"I had hoped to turn my back once and for all on my connection with the Prince. But your German Secret Service had been warned about me. The Imperial Authorities were obviously afraid that I might tell tales out of school. Scarcely had I arrived in London when a man who called himself Bryan Mowbury, but who looked and spoke like a German, came to see me and said he had been instructed to 'look after me.' What that meant, I was soon to discover. In a very few days I found that I was under the supervision of your Secret Service here. In fact, Mowbury gave me to understand that any indiscretion on my part as to my stay at Metz would result in my immediate denunciation to the English police as a spy.
"My friend, I had no alternative. I am not German; I am not English; I am a Pole. I have good friends in Germany, I have good friends in England, and their quarrels are not mine. I held my peace about the past and submitted to the incessant watch which Mowbury and his friends kept on my movements.
"And then one day I had a letter. It was from Count Plettenbach, the Crown Prince's aide-de-camp, as I knew by the hand-writing, for it was signed with an assumed name. In this letter the Count, 'on behalf of a mutual friend,' as he put it, requested me to hand back to a certain Mr. Mortimer, his accredited representative, 'Erich's present.' There were cogent reasons, it was added, for this unusual request.
"I sent no reply to that letter, although an address in Switzerland was given to which an answer might be despatched. I was resolved, come what may, not to part with the Star of Poland. When Mortimer came, five days later, I told him the jewel was not mine to hand over, that it was part of the regalia of Poland and that I would never give it up.
"Mortimer replied that the German and Austrian Governments had decided to restore the independence of Poland, that probably an Austrian Archduke would be made king and that it was essential that the Star of Poland should be restored in order to include it in the regalia for the Coronation. But I knew what this Austro-German kingdom of Poland was to be, a serf state with not a shadow of that liberty for which every Pole is longing. Since I have been in England, I have kept in touch with the Polish political organizations in this country. Rass, as he calls himself, the landlord of this inn, is one of the most prominent of the Polish leaders in England.
"Mortimer reasoned with me in