When I returned to my rooms that evening Schunke rang me up on the telephone with the news that my friends the Breitenbachs had closed their house and left early that morning for Brussels.
"Where is Seeliger?" I inquired in great surprise.
"In Brussels. The Breitenbachs have gone there to join him, now that the truth is out and his father is under arrest."
The Emperor's fury was that of a lunatic. It knew no bounds. His mind, poisoned against the poor old General, he had fixed upon him as the person responsible for that disgraceful correspondence which for so many weeks had kept the Court in constant turmoil and anxiety. Though His Majesty was aware of the actual writer of the letters, he would not listen to reason, and openly declared that he would make an example of the silver-haired old Captain-General of the Guard, who, after all, was perfectly innocent of the deeds committed by his vagabond son.
A prosecution was ordered, and three weeks later it took place in camera, the Baron, Schunke and a number of detectives being ordered to give evidence. So damning, indeed, was their testimony that the Judge passed the extreme sentence of twenty years' imprisonment.
And I, who knew and held proofs of the truth, dared not protest!
Where was the General's son – the real culprit and author of the letters? I made inquiry of Schunke, of the Baron, and of others who had, at the order of the All-Highest, conspired to ruin poor Von Trautmann. All, however, declared ignorance, and yet, curiously enough, the fine house in the Alsenstrasse still remained empty.
Later, I discovered that the Crown-Prince had been the prime mover in the vile conspiracy to send the elderly Captain-General to prison and to the grave, for of this his words to me one day – a year afterwards – were sufficient proof:
"It is a good job, Heltzendorff, that the Emperor rid himself at last of that canting old pest, Von Trautmann. He is now in a living tomb, and should have been there four years ago!" and he laughed.
I made no response. Instead, I thought of the quiet, innocent old courtier languishing in prison because he had somehow incurred the ill-will of the Emperor's son, and I confess that I ground my teeth at my own inability to expose the disgraceful truth.
About six months after the secret trial of the unfortunate General I had accompanied the Crown-Prince on a visit to the Quirinal, and one afternoon while strolling along the Corso, in Rome, suddenly came face to face with the dainty little figure of Fräulein Elise Breitenbach.
In delight I took her into Ronzi's, the noted confectioner's at the corner of the Piazza Colonna, and there, at one of the little tables, she explained to me how she and her mother, having become acquainted with Franz Seeliger – not knowing him to be the General's son – they suddenly fell under the suspicion of the Berlin Secret Police, and, though much puzzled, did not again come to Court.
Some weeks later mother and daughter chanced to be in Paris, and one day called at Seeliger's rooms in the Rue de Provence, but he was out. They, however, were shown into his room to wait, and there saw upon his table an abusive and scurrilous typewritten letter in German addressed to the Emperor. Then it suddenly dawned upon them that the affable young man might be the actual author of those infamous letters. It was this visit which, no doubt, revealed to the Baron the young man's hiding-place. Both mother and daughter, however, kept their own counsel, met Seeliger next day, and watched, subsequently learning, to their surprise, that he was the son of General von Trautmann, and, further, that he had as a friend one of the personal valets of the Emperor, from whom, no doubt, he obtained his inside information about persons at Court.
"When his poor father was sentenced we knew that the young man was living in Brussels, and at once went there in order to induce him to come forward, make confession, and so save the General from disgrace," said the pretty girl seated before me. "On arrival we saw him alone, and told him what we had discovered in the Rue de Provence, whereupon he admitted to us that he had written all the letters, and announced that he intended to return to Berlin next day and give himself up to the police in order to secure his father's release."
"And why did he not do so?" I asked eagerly.
"Because next morning he was found dead in his bed in the hotel."
"Ah, suicide."
"No," was her half-whispered reply. "He had been strangled by an unknown hand – deliberately murdered, as the Brussels police declared. They were, of course, much mystified, for they did not know, as we know, that neither the young man's presence nor his confession were desired in Berlin."
Fearing the Emperor's wrath, the Breitenbachs, like myself, dare not reveal what they knew – the truth, which is here set down for the first time – and, alas! poor General von Trautmann died in prison at Mulheim last year.
SECRET NUMBER THREE
HOW THE KAISER PERSECUTED A PRINCESS
The truth of the dastardly plot which caused the downfall of the unfortunate and much-maligned Imperial Princess Luisa Antoinette Marie, Archduchess of Austria, and wife of Friedrich-August, now the reigning King of Saxony, has never yet been revealed.
I know, my dear Le Queux, that you had a good deal to do with the "skittish Princess," as she was called, and her affairs after she had left the Court of Saxony and went to live near you in the Via Benedetto da Foiano, in Florence. You were her friend, and you were afterwards present at her secret marriage in London. Therefore, what I here reveal concerning a disgraceful conspiracy by which a clever, accomplished, and generous Princess of the blood Royal was hounded out of Germany will, I think, be of peculiar interest to yourself and to those readers for whom you are setting down my reminiscences.
As you know, before being appointed to my recent position in the Crown-Prince "Willie's" household, I was personal-adjutant to His Majesty the Emperor, and in that capacity accompanied Der Einzige (the One) on his constant travels. Always hungry for popular applause, the Emperor was ever on the move with that morbid restlessness of which he is possessed, and which drove him from city to city, hunting, yachting, unveiling statues, opening public buildings, paying ceremonial visits, or, when all excuses for travel became exhausted, he presented new colours to some regiment in some far-off garrison.
Indeed, within that one year, 1902, I accompanied "William-the-Sudden" and his host of adjutants, military and civil secretaries, valets, chasseurs and flunkeys, to twenty-eight different cities in Germany and Scandinavia, where he stopped and held Court. Some cities we visited several times, being unwelcome always because of the endless trouble, anxiety and expense caused to the municipal authorities and military casinos.
I, of course, knew the charming Imperial Highness the Crown-Princess Luisa of Saxony, as she often came on visits to the Kaiserin, but I had never spoken much with her until at Easter the Emperor went to visit Dresden. He took with him, among other people, one of his untitled boon companions, Judicial Councillor Löhlein, a stout, flabby-faced hanger-on, who at the time possessed great influence over him. Indeed, he was really the Emperor's financial agent. This man had, some time ago, very fortunately for the Emperor, opened his eyes to the way in which Kunze had manipulated the amazing Schloss Freiheit Lottery, and had been able to point out to the All-Highest One what a storm of ridicule, indignation and defiance must arise in Berlin if he attempted to carry out his huge reconstruction and building scheme.
I was present in the Emperor's room at Potsdam when old Löhlein, with whom sat Herr von Wedell, openly declared to the Emperor that if he prosecuted his pet building scheme great indignation must arise, not only in the capital, but in Hanover, Wiesbaden, and Kassel.
The Kaiser knitted his brows and listened attentively to both of his advisers. I well remember how, next day, the Press, in order to allay the public dissatisfaction, declared that the huge building projects of the Emperor never existed. They had been purely imaginary ideas put forward by a syndicate of speculative builders and taken up by the newspapers.
Without doubt the podgy, fair-haired man in gold-rimmed spectacles, the Judicial Councillor Löhlein, by crushing the Kaiser's mad scheme gained considerable popularity in a certain circle. He was, however,