He is Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl!"

The room was very still as the last words rang out. The old Amba.s.sador's gaze clung to Armitage; he stepped nearer, the perspiration breaking out upon his brow, and his lips trembled as he faltered:

"He would be king; he would be king!"

Then Armitage spoke sharply to Claiborne.

"That will do. The gentleman may retire now."

As Claiborne thrust Chauvenet out of the room, Armitage turned to the little company, smiling.

"I am not Frederick Augustus, the son of the Archduke Karl," he said quietly; "nor did I ever pretend that I was, except to lead those men on in their conspiracy. The cigarette case that caused so much trouble at Mr. Claiborne's supper-party belongs to me. Here it is."

The old Amba.s.sador s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him eagerly.

"This device--the falcon poised upon a silver helmet! You have much to explain, Monsieur."

"It is the coat-of-arms of the house of Schomburg. The case belonged to Frederick Augustus, Karl's son; and this sword was his; and these orders and that cloak lying yonder--all were his. They were gifts from his father. And believe me, my friends, I came by them honestly."

The Baron bent over the table and spilled the orders from their silver box and scanned them eagerly. The colored ribbons, the glittering jewels, held the eyes of all. Many of them were the insignia of rare orders no longer conferred. There were the crown and pendant cross of the Invincible Knights of Zaringer; the white falcon upon a silver helmet, swung from a ribbon of cloth of gold--the familiar device of the house of Schomburg, the gold Maltese cross of the Chevaliers of the Blessed Sacrament; the crossed swords above an iron crown of the Ancient Legion of Saint Michael and All Angels; and the full-rigged ship pendant from triple anchors--the decoration of the rare Spanish order of the Star of the Seven Seas. Silence held the company as the Amba.s.sador's fine old hands touched one after another. It seemed to Shirley that these baubles again bound the New World, the familiar hills of home, the Virginia sh.o.r.es, to the wallowing caravels of Columbus.

The Amba.s.sador closed the silver box the better to examine the white falcon upon its lid. Then he swung about and confronted Armitage.

"Where is he, Monsieur?" he asked, his voice sunk to a whisper, his eyes sweeping the doors and windows.

"The Archduke Karl is dead; his son Frederick Augustus, whom these conspirators have imagined me to be--he, too, is dead."

"You are quite sure--you are quite sure, Mr. Armitage?"

"I am quite sure."

"That is not enough! We have a right to ask more than your word!"

"No, it is not enough," replied Armitage quietly. "Let me make my story brief. I need not recite the peculiarities of the Archduke--his dislike of conventional society, his contempt for sham and pretense. After living a hermit life at one of the smallest and most obscure of the royal estates for several years, he vanished utterly. That was fifteen years ago."

"Yes; he was mad--quite mad," blurted the Baron.

"That was the common impression. He took his oldest son and went into exile. Conjectures as to his whereabouts have filled the newspapers sporadically ever since. He has been reported as appearing in the South Sea Islands, in India, in Australia, in various parts of this country. In truth he came directly to America and established himself as a farmer in western Canada. His son was killed in an accident; the Archduke died within the year."

Judge Claiborne bent forward in his chair as Armitage paused.

"What proof have you of this story, Mr. Armitage?"

"I am prepared for such a question, gentlemen. His ident.i.ty I may establish by various doc.u.ments which he gave me for the purpose. For greater security I locked them in a safety box of the Bronx Loan and Trust Company in New York. To guard against accidents I named you jointly with myself as ent.i.tled to the contents of that box. Here is the key."

As he placed the slim bit of steel on the table and stepped back to his old position on the hearth, they saw how white he was, and that his hand shook, and d.i.c.k begged him to sit down.

"Yes; will you not be seated, Monsieur?" said the Baron kindly.

"No; I shall have finished in a moment. The Archduke gave those doc.u.ments to me, and with them a paper that will explain much in the life of that unhappy gentleman. It contains a disclosure that might in certain emergencies be of very great value. I beg of you, believe that he was not a fool, and not a madman. He sought exile for reasons--for the reason that his son Francis, who has been plotting the murder of the new Emperor-king, _is not his son_!"

"What!" roared the Baron.

"It is as I have said. The faithlessness of his wife, and not madness, drove him into exile. He intrusted that paper to me and swore me to carry it to Vienna if Francis ever got too near the throne. It is certified by half a dozen officials authorized to administer oaths in Canada, though they, of course, never knew the contents of the paper to which they swore him. He even carried it to New York and swore to it there before the consul-general of Austria-Hungary in that city. There was a certain grim humor in him; he said he wished to have the affidavit bear the seal of his own country, and the consul-general a.s.sumed that it was a doc.u.ment of mere commercial significance."

The Baron looked at the key; he touched the silver box; his hand rested for a moment on the sword.

"It is a marvelous story--it is wonderful! Can it be true--can it be true?" murmured the Amba.s.sador.

"The doc.u.ments will be the best evidence. We can settle the matter in twenty-four hours," said Judge Claiborne.

"You will pardon me for seeming incredulous, sir," said the Baron, "but it is all so extraordinary. And these men, these prisoners--"

"They have pursued me under the impression that I am Frederick Augustus.

Oddly enough, I, too, am Frederick Augustus," and Armitage smiled. "I was within a few months of his age, and I had a little brush with Chauvenet and Durand in Geneva in which they captured my cigarette case--it had belonged to Frederick, and the Archduke gave it to me--and my troubles began. The Emperor-king was old and ill; the disorders in Hungary were to cloak the a.s.sa.s.sination of his successor; then the Archduke Francis, Karl's reputed son, was to be installed upon the throne."

"Yes; there has been a conspiracy; I--"

"And there have been conspirators! Two of them are safely behind that door; and, somewhat through my efforts, their chief, Winkelried, should now be under arrest in Vienna. I have had reasons, besides my pledge to Archduke Karl, for taking an active part in these affairs. A year ago I gave Karl's repudiation of his second son to Count Ferdinand von Stroebel, the prime minister. The statement was stolen from him for the Winkelried conspirators by these men we now have locked up in this house."

The Amba.s.sador's eyes blazed with excitement as these statements fell one by one from Armitage's lips; but Armitage went on:

"I trust that my plan for handling these men will meet with your approval. They have chartered the _George W. Custis_, a fruit-carrying steamer lying at Morgan's wharf in Baltimore, in which they expected to make off after they had finished with me. At one time they had some idea of kidnapping me; and it isn't my fault they failed at that game.

But I leave it to you, gentlemen, to deal with them. I will suggest, however, that the presence just now in the West Indies, of the cruiser _Sophia Margaret_, flying the flag of Austria-Hungary, may be suggestive."

He smiled at the quick glance that pa.s.sed between the Amba.s.sador and Judge Claiborne.

Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the minds of all.

"Who are _you_, John Armitage?"

And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had used throughout:

"I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel. The Archduke's son and I were school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father's place near the royal lands. The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings. Let me make my story short--I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them.

It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies."

"Yes, that is true; it is all true! And you never saw your father--you never went to him?"

"I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl. When I appeared before my father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria--Austria, always Austria!"

"Yes; that was quite like him," said the Amba.s.sador. "He served his country with a pa.s.sionate devotion. He hated America--he distrusted the whole democratic idea. It was that which pointed his anger against you--that you should have chosen to live here."

"Then when I saw him at Geneva--that last interview--he told me that Karl's statement had been stolen, and he had his spies abroad looking for the thieves. He was very bitter against me. It was only a few hours before he was killed, as a part of the Winkelried conspiracy. He had given his life for Austria. He told me never to see him again--never to claim my own name until I had done something for Austria. And I went to Vienna and knelt in the crowd at his funeral, and no one knew me, and it hurt me, oh, it hurt me to know that he had grieved for me; that he had wanted a son to carry on his own work, while I had grown away from the whole idea of such labor as his. And now--"

He faltered, his hoa.r.s.e voice broke with stress of feeling, and his pallor deepened.

"It was not my fault--it was really not my fault! I did the best I could, and, by G.o.d, I've got them in the room there where they can't do any harm!--and d.i.c.k Claiborne, you are the finest fellow in the world, and the squarest and bravest, and I want to take your hand before I go to sleep; for I'm sick--yes, I'm sick--and sleepy--and you'd better haul down that flag over the door--it's treason, I tell you!--and if you see Shirley, tell her I'm John Armitage--tell her I'm John Armitage, John Arm--"

The room and its figures rushed before his eyes, and as he tried to stand erect his knees crumpled under him, and before they could reach him he sank to the floor with a moan. As they crowded about he stirred slightly, sighed deeply, and lay perfectly still.