"I know of Winkelried. The continental press has given much space to him of late; but Rambaud is a new name."
"He is a skilled hand. He is the most daring scoundrel in Europe."
Count von Stroebel poured a glass of brandy from a silver flask and sipped it slowly.
"I will show you the gentleman's pleasant countenance," said the minister, and he threw open a leather portfolio and drew from it a small photograph which he extended to Armitage, who glanced at it carelessly and then with sudden interest.
"Rambaud!" he exclaimed.
"That's his name in Vienna. In Paris he is something else. I will furnish you a list of his noms de guerre."
"Thank you. I should like all the information you care to give me; but it may amuse you to know that I have seen the gentleman before."
"That is possible," remarked the old man, who never evinced surprise in any circumstances.
"I expect to see him here within a few days."
Count von Stroebel held up his empty glass and studied it attentively, while he waited for Armitage to explain why he expected to see Rambaud in Geneva.
"He is interested in a certain young woman. She reached here yesterday; and Rambaud, alias Chauvenet, is quite likely to arrive within a day or so."
"Jules Chauvenet is the correct name. I must inform my men," said the minister.
"You wish to arrest him?"
"You ought to know me better than that, Mr. John Armitage! Of course I shall not arrest him! But I must get that packet. I can't have it peddled all over Europe, and I can't advertise my business by having him arrested here. If I could catch him once in Vienna I should know what to do with him! He and Winkelried got hold of our plans in that Bulgarian affair last year and checkmated me. He carries his wares to the best buyers—Berlin and St. Petersburg. So there's a woman, is there? I've found that there usually is!"
"There's a very charming young American girl, to be more exact."
The old man growled and eyed Armitage sharply, while Armitage studied the photograph.
"I hope you are not meditating a preposterous marriage. Go back where you belong, make a proper marriage and wait—"
"Events!" and John Armitage laughed. "I tell you, sir, that waiting is not my forte. That's what I like about America; they're up and at it over there; the man who waits is lost."
"They're a lot of swine!" rumbled Von Stroebel's heavy bass.
"I still owe allegiance to the Schomburg crown, so don't imagine you are hitting me. But the swine are industrious and energetic. Who knows but that John Armitage might become famous among them—in politics, in finance! But for the deplorable accident of foreign birth he might become president of the United States. As it is, there are thousands of other offices worth getting—why not?"
"I tell you not to be a fool. You are young and—fairly clever—"
Armitage laughed at the reluctance of the count's praise.
"Thank you, with all my heart!"
"Go back where you belong and you will have no regrets. Something may happen—who can tell? Events—events—if a man will watch and wait and study events—"
"Bless me! They organize clubs in every American village for the study of events," laughed Armitage; then he changed his tone. "To be sure, the Bourbons have studied events these many years—a pretty spectacle, too."
"Carrion! Carrion!" almost screamed the old man, half-rising in his seat. "Don't mention those scavengers to me! Bah! The very thought of them makes me sick. But"—he gulped down more of the brandy—"where and how do you live?"
"Where? I own a cattle ranch in Montana and since the Archduke's death I have lived there. He carried about fifty thousand pounds to America with him. He took care that I should get what was left when he died—and, I am almost afraid to tell you that I have actually augmented my inheritance! Just before I left I bought a place in Virginia to be near Washington when I got tired of the ranch."
"Washington!" snorted the count. "In due course it will be the storm center of the world."
"You read the wrong American newspapers," laughed Armitage.
They were silent for a moment, in which each was busy with his own thoughts; then the count remarked, in as amiable a tone as he ever used:
"Your French is first rate. Do you speak English as well?"
"As readily as German, I think. You may recall that I had an English tutor, and maybe I did not tell you in that interview at Paris that I had spent a year at Harvard University."
"What the devil did you do that for?" growled Von Stroebel.
"From curiosity, or ambition, as you like. I was in Cambridge at the law school for a year before the Archduke died. That was three years ago. I am twenty-eight, as you may remember. I am detaining you; I have no wish to rake over the past; but I am sorry—I am very sorry we can't meet on some common ground."
"I ask you to abandon this democratic nonsense and come back and make a man of yourself. You might go far—very far; but this democracy has hold of you like a disease."
"What you ask is impossible. It is just as impossible now as it was when we discussed it in Paris last year. To sit down in Vienna and learn how to keep that leaning tower of an Empire from tumbling down like a stack of bricks—it does not appeal to me. You have spent a laborious life in defending a silly medieval tradition of government. You are using all the apparatus of the modern world to perpetuate an ideal that is as old and dead as the Rameses dynasty. Every time you use the telegraph to send orders in an emperor's name you commit an anachronism."
The count frowned and growled.
"Don't talk to me like that. It is not amusing."
"No; it is not funny. To see men like you fetching and carrying for dull kings, who would drop through the gallows or go to planting turnips without your brains—it does not appeal to my sense of humor or to my imagination."
"You put it coarsely," remarked the old man grimly. "I shall perhaps have a statue when I am gone."
"Quite likely; and mobs will rendezvous in its shadow to march upon the royal palaces. If I were coming back to Europe I should go in for something more interesting than furnishing brains for sickly kings."
"I dare say! Very likely you would persuade them to proclaim democracy and brotherhood everywhere."
"On the other hand, I should become king myself."
"Don't be a fool, Mr. John Armitage. Much as you have grieved me, I should hate to see you in a madhouse."
"My faculties, poor as they are, were never clearer. I repeat that if I were going to furnish the brains for an empire I should ride in the state carriage myself, and not be merely the driver on the box, who keeps the middle of the road and looks out for sharp corners. Here is a plan ready to my hand. Let me find that lost document, appear in Vienna and announce myself Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl! I knew both men intimately. You may remember that Frederick and I were born in the same month. I, too, am Frederick Augustus! We passed commonly in America as brothers. Many of the personal effects of Karl and Augustus are in my keeping—by the Archduke's own wish. You have spent your life studying human nature, and you know as well as I do that half the world would believe my story if I said I was the Emperor's nephew. In the uneasy and unstable condition of your absurd empire I should be hailed as a diversion, and then—events, events!"
Count von Stroebel listened with narrowing eyes, and his lips moved in