Published 2017
All rights reserved
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
In 1914 there were not twenty men in England who had ever heard of the island of Salissa. Even now—I am writing in the spring of 1917—the public is very badly informed about the events which gave the island a certain importance in the history of the war. A couple of months ago I asked a well-known press-cutting agency to supply me with a complete collection of all references to Salissa which had appeared in our newspapers. I received a single short paragraph from a second-rate society weekly. It ran thus:
“Is it true that our new Minister for Balkan Problems has a curious story to tell about a certain island in the Mediterranean, and is there a lady in the case?”
The Minister referred to is, of course, Sir Bartholomew Bland-Potterton. The island must be Salissa. It is a clear proof, if proof is required, of the efficiency of our press censorship that this should be the only reference to the island in any newspaper in the course of three years. We have blundered a good deal during the war; but it cannot be said of us that we have allowed our press to supply the enemy or any one else with information likely to be of value.
Such knowledge as the public now possesses has come to it, not through newspapers, but by way of gossip. Sir Bartholomew sometimes talks, and the words of a man in his position are repeated in the smoking-rooms of clubs, round tea tables and elsewhere. Unfortunately gossip of this kind is most unreliable. The tendency is to exaggerate the picturesque parts of the story and to misinterpret motives. It is slanderous, for instance, to suggest that Sir Bartholomew was in any way attracted by the lady who bore the title of Queen of Salissa. He never spoke to her or even saw her. His interest in the Salissa affair was that of a patriotic statesman. He told me this himself, yesterday after dinner.
It was Sir Bartholomew who drew my attention to the exhaustive monograph on the Island of Salissa written by Professor Homer Geldes, of Pearmount University, Pa., U.S.A. The book was published ten years ago, but has never been widely read. I am indebted to the professor for the following information.
Salissa is derived by Professor Geldes from a Greek word Psalis, which means an arched viaduct. It is a doubtful piece of etymology, but if it were reliable the name seems appropriate enough. The island, according to the maps published in the book, appears to be a kind of roof supported by the walls of caverns. It is possible that the professor has exaggerated this peculiarity. He was naturally anxious to make good his derivation of the name. But there are certainly many caves under the fields and vineyards of Salissa. There is one excellent natural harbour, a bay, about a mile wide, in the south coast of the island. It is protected from heavy seas by a reef of rock, a natural breakwater, which stretches across and almost blocks the entrance of the bay.
In the chapter on Ethnography I find that the people are of a mixed race. A Salissan, I gather, might boast with equal truth of being a Greek, a Turk, a Slav, or an Italian. His skull is dolichocephalic. His facial angle—but it is better for any one interested in these points to read Professor Geldes’ book for himself. No regular census has ever been made on the island; but in 1907 there were forty-three inhabitants. The number has probably increased since then.
The principal industries are set down, rather grandiloquently, as agriculture and fishing. A small quantity of poor wine is made by the inhabitants for their own use. The religion of these islanders, like their race, is mixed. It seems to consist of some vague pagan beliefs and the observance of a few Christian ceremonies. The people are not in any way bigoted. Their priesthood—if it can be called a priesthood—is patriarchal. There are no taxes, no police, no courts of justice, no regular laws, indeed no government, though the island is, or was, part of the Kingdom of Megalia.
My friend Gorman, who spent some time there, says that Salissa was a delightful place to live on until the Great Powers discovered its existence. But I do not quote Gorman as a reliable authority on a question of this kind. He is an Irishman, Member of Parliament for Upper Offaly, and therefore naturally at home on an island with no government. There are people who prefer to live under settled conditions, who like paying taxes, who appreciate policemen. It is not likely that they would have been happy on Salissa three years ago. They would certainly not like to live there now.
It is scarcely necessary to add—any one who possesses an atlas can find this out for himself—that Salissa lies 47 miles (nautical) south-east of the nearest point of the Megalian coast, and thus occupies a position of supreme strategic importance. Sir Bartholomew kindly allows me to quote him on this subject. I took down the words he used and read them over to him afterwards.
“The Power,” he said, “which controls the Near East controls the world. The Power which dominates the Cyrenian Sea holds the Near East in its grasp. The Island of Salissa is the keystone of the Cyrenian Sea. The German dream of world power depends, at the last analysis, on the use of the Island of Salissa as a submarine base.”
This reads like a quotation from a political speech. It is nothing of the sort. Sir Bartholomew always talks in that way. He made this statement to me yesterday evening after dinner, when I told him that I had undertaken to write the story of recent events in the island. The pronouncement, coming from a man like Sir Bartholomew, admittedly the greatest living authority on all Near Eastern questions, justifies the writing of this book.
Whether I am the man to attempt the work is another question. Gorman, Michael Gorman, M.P., would no doubt do it better. Though he has no financial interests in the island, he was mixed up in its affairs and knows a great deal about them. But Gorman will not do it. He says, perhaps truly, that there is no money in histories of recent events. William Peter Donovan paid heavily for his knowledge of Salissa and is certainly entitled to such credit as may be won by writing a history of the recent troubles. But Donovan has devoted his later years to the cult of indolence, and he suffers from disordered action of the heart. Miss Daisy Donovan—I prefer to use her original name—might have given us a picturesque account of the events in which she played the leading part. But she is now very fully occupied with more personal affairs. Lieutenant-Commander Phillips, R.N.R., is barred by professional regulations from writing the story, and in any case he had no direct knowledge of the beginning of it. King Konrad Karl II of Megalia knows most of the facts, but it is doubtful whether the British public would tolerate a book from the pen of a man who is legally an alien enemy.
I have, at all events, leisure to devote to the work, and I have heard the story from the lips of those chiefly concerned. They have allowed me to question them on various points, and placed all, or almost all, they knew at my disposal.
Konrad Karl II began to reign over Megalia in 1908. He obtained the throne through the good offices of his uncle, who wanted to get rid of him. Konrad Karl, at that time prince, was the hero of several first-rate scandals, and had the reputation of being the most irrepressible blackguard of royal blood in all Europe. He was a perpetual source of trouble in the Imperial Court. Gorman says that the Emperor pushed him on to the vacant throne in the hopes that the Megalians would assassinate him. They generally did assassinate their kings, and would no doubt have cut the throat of Konrad Karl II if he had not left the country hurriedly after reigning two years.
As king in exile Konrad Karl made a tour of the central European courts, staying as long as he could in each. He was never allowed to stay very long because of Madame Corinne Ypsilante. This lady had shared with him the palace, but not the throne, of Megalia. She accompanied him in his flight and subsequent wanderings. In these democratic days Grand Dukes, Kings, and even Emperors, must have some regard for appearances if they wish to keep their positions. It is painfully necessary to avoid open and flagrant scandal. Madame Corinne was a lady who showed wherever she was. It was impossible to conceal her. Konrad Karl did not even try.
Some time in 1912 or 1913 he arrived, still accompanied by Madame, in London. His reputation, and hers, had preceded him. English society did not receive him warmly. He occupied a suite of rooms at Beaufort’s, the expensive and luxurious hotel which is the London home of foreign royalties and American millionaires. Kings, I suppose, can hold out longer than ordinary men without paying their bills. Konrad Karl was in low water financially. His private fortune was small. Madame Corinne had no money of her own, though she had jewels. Perhaps Mr. Beaufort—if the proprietor of the hotel is indeed a Mr. Beaufort—makes enough money out of the millionaires to enable him to entertain impecunious kings.
My friend Gorman made the acquaintance of Konrad Karl early in 1913. Gorman is a man who lives comfortably, very much more comfortably than he could if he had no resources except the beggarly £400 a year which his country pays him as a reward for his popularity with the people of Upper Offaly. He makes money in various ways. His journalistic work brings him in a few hundreds a year. Enterprises of a commercial or financial kind add very considerably to his income. In 1913 he was interested in the Near Eastern Winegrowers’ Association, a limited liability company which aimed at making money by persuading the British public to drink Greek wine. He heard of Konrad Karl, and at once invited that monarch to become one of the directors of the company. Konrad Karl was not a Greek, and his country did not produce wine which any one except a Megalian could drink. His value to Gorman lay in the fact that there was not another limited liability company in all England which had a King on its Board of Directors.
One of the least objectionable of the wines which Gorman’s company sold was put on the market as Vino Regalis. The advertisements hinted without actually stating that the King had succeeded in carrying off a thousand dozen bottles of this wine out of the royal cellars when he fled from his subjects in Megalia. The bottles in which Vino Regalis was sold had yards of gold foil wrapped round their necks. They were in their way quite as splendid and obtrusive as Madame Corinne was in hers. I always think that Gorman must have had the lady before his eyes when he arranged the get-up of that wine.
The company prospered for a while, until the public became aware of the quality of the wine sold. Then came a collapse. But Gorman did pretty well out of it. The King also did pretty well. He drew fees as a director, a special honorarium in recognition of the value of his title, and his share of the profits. The profits were large, but he spent all he got as he received it. Madame Corinne is an expensive lady, and the King was just as badly off after the collapse of the company as he had been before he became a director. He consulted Gorman about his future. This was a very wise thing to do. Gorman probably knows more ways of making money than any man in London.
The consultation—the true starting point of the story of the Island of Salissa—took place in one of the King’s rooms in Beaufort’s. Madame Corinne was not there. She had, I think, gone to the opera. Gorman and the King dined well, as men do who can command the services of the chef at Beaufort’s. The wine they drank was not Vino Regalis. After dinner they sat in front of a fire. Brandy and coffee were on a small table set between their chairs. They smoked large and excellent cigars.
“My friend,” said the King, “I find myself in a tight place. I am, as the English say, broke like a stone.”
The King prided himself on his mastery of that esoteric English by which the members of various sets, smart, sporting and other, conceal the meaning of what they say from outsiders, especially from foreigners who have acquired their knowledge of our language by painful study of dictionaries and grammars.
“Since the wine company went on the burst,” said the King, “I have not a stiver, not a red cent, not in all my pockets the price of one damned drink.”
“If I might venture to advise you, sir,” said Gorman.
“Advise? Certainly advise. But drop or, as you say in England, knock up calling me ‘sir.’ I am no longer a king. I resign. I abdicate. I chuck up the sponge of royalty. What the hell, my dear Gorman, is the good of being a king when there are no shekels?”
“I shouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Gorman. “After all, royalty is an asset. A title like that—kings aren’t at all common, you know—is worth money in the market.”
The King drank a glass of brandy with an air of great dejection.
“In what market? Who will buy?”
“Well,” said Gorman, “I suppose you might marry. There must be lots of wealthy girls who would like to be called queen.”
The King leaned forward and smacked Gorman heartily on the knee.
“You have hit the business end of the nail,” he said. “I am ready. I shall marry. Produce the lady, or, as you say in England, cough her up.”
Gorman had not expected this prompt and enthusiastic approval of his suggestion. He had not a list of heiresses in his pocket.
“But,” he said, “there’s Madame Ypsilante.”
“Corinne is reasonable,” said the King. “I should not, of course, show my cold shoulder to Corinne. She would share the loot. She and I together.”
Gorman knew that the King was a blackguard entirely without principle or honour; but this proposal startled him.
“I have it,” said the King. “Something has happened—no, occurred to me. There is in this hotel at this moment an American, an oof-bird, a king of dollars.”
“Donovan?”
Gorman knew Donovan pretty well; as indeed he knew all wealthy Irish-Americans. It was Gorman’s business to cross the Atlantic from time to time to get money for the support of the Irish Party. Donovan had been for many years a generous subscriber to these funds.
“There is a daughter,” said the King. “I have not put eyes on her. She may be—but it does not matter what she is, not a curse, not a damn from the Continent. I shall still have Corinne. The American oof-girl may have the eyes of a pig. I do not care.”
It is not easy to shock Gorman. Indeed, I should have said beforehand that it was impossible to shock him. But I have his assurance that Konrad Karl did it. It is true that Gorman himself had suggested marriage to the King as a way out of his difficulties. But marriage with an unnamed and unknown heiress is one thing. The King’s plan, frankly worked out, for insulting and robbing a girl whom Gorman knew personally was quite a different matter. Miss Daisy Donovan is a bright-faced, clear-eyed, romantic-souled girl. She had finished her course of study in one of the universities of the Middle-west without becoming a cultivated prig. In spite of the fact that history, economics, emasculated philosophy and a kind of intellectual complexion cream called literature had been smeared all over her by earnest professors, she had never learned to take herself, life or society at all seriously. She had all the vitality which gives American women their singular charm and none of the appalling earnestness of high endeavour which sometimes leads even very charming women into repulsive kinds of foolishness. The thought of a marriage between Miss Daisy and King Konrad Karl—with Madame Ypsilante in the near background—affected Gorman with a feeling of physical nausea.
The King possessed a certain capacity for sympathy. He guessed something of what was in Gorman’s mind.
“After all,” he said, “she would be a queen. It is something. You have said so yourself, my friend. You cannot have an omelette without the sacrifice of an egg. But I see—I see very plainly that you do not wish me to marry the Donovan oof-girl. You will not back me up. Good. I back down. I bear no malice. I wish you success. I shall eat cake at your wedding without envy. To you the American with pigs’ eyes—yes, I am sure she has pigs’ eyes. To me Corinne. To which of us happiness? eh, my friend?”
Gorman felt that it would be perfectly impossible to convince the King that he had no wish to marry Miss Daisy or her fortune.
“All right,” he said. “Leave it at that if you like.”
“I have left it,” said the King, “at that, precisely at that, though I do not like it at all.”
“And now,” said Gorman, “let’s get back to your own affairs. You say that you’re in a tightish place just for the moment.”
“I am in a hell hole,” said the King.
“Why not go back to the Emperor? He must do something for you. After all, he’s your uncle. He can’t let you go under altogether. Of course you’ll have to eat humble pie, do the repentant prodigal and all that sort of thing.”
“I should with gladness eat any pie—even pie made of the fatted calf of the prodigal; but—there is Corinne. The Emperor regards Corinne very much, my dear Gorman, as you regard me. I do not complain. You and the Emperor are no doubt right. You hit your nails on the head, both of you, when you say of Corinne and me—they are blackguards. But I prefer Corinne and no veal pie to veal pie and no Corinne. Yes, my friend, I choose Corinne every time.”
I have met King Konrad Karl once or twice, and I have, of course, heard a good deal about him. He is, unquestionably, a scoundrel. But I agree with Gorman that he is a frank and therefore an attractive scoundrel. Besides, his fidelity to Corinne is a redeeming feature, perhaps the only redeeming feature of his character.
Gorman is, if not a blackguard, at all events an adventurer, and therefore kin to the King. He saw the impossibility of leading Corinne to the foot of the imperial throne; and he felt that, after all, the King was right from his own point of view. Corinne was more desirable than many fatted calves. He cast about for some other way out of the difficult position.
“We might,” he said, “make something out of Megalia.”
“Nothing,” said the King. “I have been in Megalia and I know it. It is a one-dog country. There is nothing in it. I have tried it, and I know.”
“We might start a Megalian Development Company,” said Gorman.
“A company, perhaps,” said the King, “but development of Megalia, never.”
“I was not thinking of actually developing it. That would be the company’s business afterwards. Not that it will be easy to start the company. It won’t. Nobody knows anything about the damned place.”
“That is our best chance,” said the King. “If any one did know Megalia, the company would be—what is it you say—a scrub down—no—a wash-up—ah, I have it—a wash-out.”
“You’d grant concessions, I suppose,” said Gorman.
“I do not know exactly what a concession means,” said the King, “but if any one will pay for it I will give them permission to make the people of Megalia into sausages and kidneys. Believe me, my friend, that is the only development of which the Megalians are capable. They are pigs—Gadarene pigs.”
“We won’t suggest that in the prospectus,” said Gorman. “Our company, if we ever get it started, must be humanitarian, altruistic; I’m not sure that it ought not to be a little religious—mission of civilization. That’s the note to strike.”
“And you expect to make money out of—out of that? out of what you teach in your schools for Sunday?”
“It’s just exactly out of that that money is made.”
“The English,” said the King, “are a great people, very wonderful. You—even you, my friend, who are not English, but Irish—you will not let me marry because of Corinne. You wish me to eat humble pie while poor Corinne goes hungry, and yet you will make money out of a company for reforming the people of Megalia, making them civilized, Christian—a thing that is not at all possible—ever, in any way. Tell me, my friend, could you not start a company to develop, reform, improve Corinne and me. Believe me, it would be easier to do.”
Gorman realized that the development of Megalia was not an enterprise likely to attract the British capitalist. Still all things are possible in business, the business of company promoting. He set to work to collect what information he could about the country. The library of the House of Commons was useless to him. Megalia is the only country in the world about which no Blue Book ever has been published. A belief existed among certain city men interested in mining speculation, that there was copper in the mountains of Megalia; but no one had any exact information on the subject. Longwood, the Balkan correspondent of the New York Press, was in London at this time, and Gorman got hold of him. He had little to say about Megalia except that all the inhabitants are brigands. Steinwitz, managing director of the Cyrenian Sea Steam Navigation Company, professed to be interested in Megalia. He was certainly interested in the fact that Gorman was making inquiries about the country. He said that there were no harbours or possible ports of call on the Megalian coast.
“Nothing,” he said, “can be done with that country. Nothing at all. There is no trade, no traffic of any kind. And there cannot be. If there were anything to be done in Megalia, we should have had a steamer going there. Our ships pass the coast. But they do not call. Never.”
This interview, curiously enough, was the one thing which gave Gorman any hope. Steinwitz was plainly anxious to discourage inquiries about Megalia. And Steinwitz had the reputation of being a very astute man.
Gorman tabulated the information he had acquired. He produced, after some thought, a few notes on Megalia which might be embodied in a plausible prospectus.
1. A Megalian Development Company would have a clear field and no competition to face. Gorman felt that this was a fair deduction from the fact that nobody knew anything definite about the country.
2. The mineral wealth of Megalia is untapped. Nobody had ever taken any copper from the mountains and nobody denied that it was there. It was therefore fair to say that the mineral wealth of the country was untapped.
3. The inhabitants are energetic and enterprising, a vigorous and courageous race. Sluggards and decadents, so Gorman felt, do not become brigands.
That was all the material Gorman had to work with. Except the one fact, which could not be published, that Steinwitz, the director of a German Shipping Company with its headquarters in London, did not want public attention turned to Megalia. The floating of a company, even if the King offered every concession, did not seem to be a hopeful enterprise.
Gorman did not, in the end, attempt to form that company. A second dinner at Beaufort’s showed him another way of saving the unfortunate King Konrad Karl from ruin. This time the invitation came from Mr. Donovan.
The Donovans occupied one of the best suites of rooms in that sumptuous hotel. The old gentleman had the satisfaction of stretching himself in beautifully upholstered chairs and dropping cigar ashes on highly gilt tables. He was suffering, so he believed, from disordered action of the heart, induced by the toil and excitement of making a large fortune. Several doctors agreed in recommending complete rest and quiet. Mr. Donovan was convinced that rest and quiet would be pleasant as well as beneficial. He left Chicago, where such things are certainly not to be found, and sought them in London. For a time he believed he had found them. He sat all day in his room at Beaufort’s, waited on by footmen who wore gold-braided coats, crimson breeches and silk stockings, looking like very dignified ambassadors. He signed cheques payable to Miss Daisy. He exerted himself in no other way. But rest and quiet are hard to come by. Letters pursued him from Chicago. Thoughtless people even cabled to him. Secretaries of benevolent societies discovered him. The London agents of American financiers rang him up on telephones. Finally Miss Daisy, having drunk deep of the delights of London, became restless.
At first she had enjoyed life thoroughly. She had a marble-fitted bathroom for her sole use. She slept in a beautiful bed under a painted ceiling. She tried on dresses for hours every day in front of huge gilt mirrors. She gathered in immense quantities the peculiar treasures of Bond Street. Then she began to yearn for something more. Her father considered her demands, thought of his own disordered heart and asked Gorman to dinner.
The conversation at first ran along natural lines. The sights of London were discussed. The plays which Miss Daisy had seen and the picture galleries she had visited were criticized. Then Gorman was called on to give opinions about the books she had not found time to read. London and its attractions were compared with Chicago and Detroit; Miss Daisy preferred London. Her father said there were points about Detroit, but that quiet was no more obtainable in one than the other. Afterwards politics were touched on. Miss Daisy gave it as her opinion that the Irish Party was rather slow about getting Home Rule. She displayed a considerable knowledge of affairs, and told Gorman frankly that he ought to have been able to buy up a substantial majority of the British House of Commons with the money, many hundred thousand dollars, which her father and other Americans had subscribed.
Gorman has always been of opinion that women are incapable of understanding politics. Miss Daisy’s direct and simple way of attacking great problems confirmed him in his belief that Woman Suffrage would be a profound mistake.
He was relieved when, after dinner, Donovan himself started a new subject.
“I hear,” he said, “that there is a king, a European monarch, resident in this hotel. That so?”
“King Konrad Karl II of Megalia,” said Gorman.
“Friend of yours?”
“Well, yes,” said Gorman. “I’ve had some business connection with him.”
“I’m interested in that monarch,” said Donovan. “It was Daisy drew my attention to him first, and then I made inquiries. He’s not considered a first-class king, I reckon. Doesn’t move in the best royal circles. He could be approached, without diplomatic formalities, by a plain American citizen.”
“There’s not the least difficulty about approaching him,” said Gorman. “I don’t believe you’d care for him much if you knew him, and——”
Gorman cast about for the best way of saying that King Konrad Karl would not be a desirable friend for Miss Daisy. Donovan saved him the trouble of finding a suitable phrase.
“He could be approached,” he said, “by a plain American citizen, if that citizen came with a business proposition in his hand.”
Gorman saw what he believed to be an opportunity. Donovan apparently wanted to do business with the King. Such business must necessarily be connected with Megalia. A company for the development of that country could be founded without difficulty if a man of Donovan’s enormous wealth took up a substantial block of shares. Gorman poured out all the information he had collected about Megalia. Donovan listened to him in silence. It was Miss Daisy who spoke at last.
“What you say about the enterprising nature of those inhabitants interests me,” she said, “but I am not much taken with the notion of copper mining. It seems to me that copper mines would be liable to spoil the natural beauty of the landscape.”
Gorman was, for the moment, too much surprised to speak. He had been in America several times and knew a good many American women. He realized their independence of character and mental vigour. But he did not expect that a young girl, fresh from college, enjoying the first taste of London, would take a leading part in discussing a matter of business. Before he had made up his mind what line to take with Miss Daisy, Donovan shot a question at him.
“What size is that monarchy?” he said.
“The actual boundaries are a little uncertain,” said Gorman, “but I think we may say a hundred miles by about thirty.”
“Inhabitants? Is it considerably settled?”
“I should guess the population at about 10,000.”
Gorman glanced at his daughter. Miss Daisy’s eyes gleamed with pleasurable excitement.
“I’ll buy that monarchy,” said Donovan, “money down, and I expect the King and I won’t fall out about the price. But if I buy, I buy the section and all fixings, royal palace, throne, crown and title. I’m particular about the title.”
Miss Daisy jumped from her chair and ran round the table. She flung her arms round her father’s neck and kissed him heartily, first on one cheek, then on the other.
“You darling!” she said.
Donovan disengaged his head from her embrace and turned to Gorman.
“My little girl has taken a notion,” he said, “that she’d like to be a queen. The thing might be worked by marrying; but we don’t either of us care for that notion. She’d be tied up if she married, and she might tire. My idea—and hers—is that it’s better to buy what we want right out. I don’t say that Megalia is precisely the kingdom I’d have chosen for her. I’d have preferred a place with a bigger reputation, one better advertised by historians. But I realize that the European monarchy market has been cornered by a syndicate, and I can’t just step down and buy what I like. Your leading families, so I understand, have secured options on the best kingdoms and won’t part.”
Miss Daisy was still standing with her arms round her father’s neck. She hugged him as she spoke.
“I shall just love Megalia,” she said. “I’d far rather have it than one three times the size.”
“Well,” said her father, “I guess there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have it.”
Gorman saw several reasons, excellent ones, why Daisy Donovan could never be queen of Megalia. He began to explain them. Kingdoms cannot be bought and sold like horses. There are emperors and other kings to consider. There is the Balance of Power in Europe. There are ambassadors, chancelleries, statesmen. He was not at all sure that the Monroe Doctrine, in an inverted form, might not be an absolute bar to the purchase of a European kingdom by an American. Donovan brushed the difficulties aside.
“Those points,” he said, “will be considered in settling the price. I’m aware that Europe has its prejudices. I’m not out to trample on them. Genuine vested interests owned by other monarchs will be paid for. Ambassadors and chancellors will be taken on and employed at their old salaries as part of a going concern.”
Gorman is, like the Megalians, enterprising and full of courage. He did not believe that the sale of the Crown of Megalia could possibly be carried through; but something might be done which would satisfy Donovan. An estate, carrying with it a title like that of Grand Duchess, might be made over to Miss Daisy. All kings possess the power of conferring titles. If such honours are freely sold in a country like England, there could be no possible objection to the King of Megalia taking a reasonable price for creating a Grand Duchess, even, perhaps, a princess. Donovan’s next words made Gorman determine to try what he could do.
“There’ll be a rake-off from the purchase price,” said Donovan, “for the man who arranges the sale. I don’t kick against a reasonable percentage.”
It was Gorman’s misfortune that all through the Megalia negotiations he had to deal with women as well as men, indeed sometimes with women rather than men.
Donovan held it as an article of faith that anything in the world can be bought for money, if only there is money enough. But Donovan would not have insisted on justifying his faith by putting it to the test. No one does that. Not even a church, though firmly convinced of its own infallibility, will bludgeon the world into an acceptance of its claim by making decisions about matters which are susceptible of proof. Donovan would have been quite content to believe that he could purchase the Crown of Megalia without actually doing so. It was Miss Daisy, who had no theories about the power of money, who insisted on becoming a queen.
King Konrad Karl knew perfectly well that he could not sell what Donovan wanted to buy.
“I would,” he said, “sell Megalia with damnable pleasure. Your friend’s daughter might be Queen or Empress or Sultana. You, my dear Gorman, might be king consort when you married her. But you know and I know and Corinne knows—alas! we all know—that if I attempted a coup d’état of that kind the Emperor would at once put in my wheel a spoke. It is a cursed pity; but what can we do? We must, as you once said to me, Gorman, be content to leave it at that.”
Madame Ypsilante was present when Gorman first suggested the sale of Megalia. She cut into the conversation with a very pertinent remark.
“The price,” she said, “would be enormous.”
Madame is a lady of expensive tastes and appreciates the advantage of possessing money. There was at that time in Goldsturmer’s Bond Street establishment a rope of pearls which she very much wished to possess. Miss Daisy Donovan had seen it and admired it greatly. This fact rendered Madame’s desire almost overwhelming.
“The price of a kingdom,” she said. “Consider.”
Her fine eyes opened very wide as she considered the price which Donovan might be induced to pay for Megalia. The King sighed deeply.
“Alas!” he said. “The Emperor.”
“Damn the Emperor,” said Madame.
She had every reason to wish evil to the Emperor. His malignant respect for conventional morality had driven her from the precincts of his court, had been the prime cause of the misfortunes which had nearly overwhelmed her and Konrad, and now the Emperor stood between her and the possession of the most magnificent pearls in Europe. It was no wonder that she cursed him. Konrad Karl did not rebuke her disloyalty. He merely shrugged his shoulders, feeling that it was no use damning the Emperor. That potentate would not moult a feather though Madame Ypsilante cursed him all day long. Madame herself felt the uselessness of losing her temper with some one she could not hurt. She asked the King to give her a glass of brandy. That stimulated her imagination.
“This American,” she said, “is no doubt a fool, and his daughter imbecile. Do not contradict me. All young girls are imbecile. As for the father, if he were not a fool would he wish to buy Megalia? Megalia, my God! The world is full of things desirable to buy; and he asks for that.”
The King nodded. He knew Megalia. The man who wanted to buy it was certainly a fool. Gorman was forced to admit that Donovan showed less wisdom than might be expected in wishing to spend money on a kingdom of that kind.
“Then,” said Madame, “the affair is simple. He buys. You sell. He pays. You take. We skip. I love London—yes, very well. But after all there are other cities. We skip. The Emperor acts. The American curses. What is that to us?”
The King shook his head. The plan was simple. Unfortunately the world is not big enough for the working out of really great conceptions.
“We should be pursued. They would take us by the collar. We should be compelled to disgorge the swag.”
“We should not be so compelled,” said Madame. “I should at once buy pearls and diamonds, and I should conceal them. You, Konrad, would have nothing to disgorge.”
It is certain that the King had a real affection for Madame Corinne. Gorman called it an infatuation. No doubt he even trusted her. It is just conceivable that he would have allowed her to wander off by herself with several hundred thousand pounds worth of jewels while he argued with the Emperor and Donovan and the U. S. Ambassador. But Gorman pointed out a fatal defect in the scheme.
“I don’t deny,” he said, “that there’s a soft spot somewhere in Donovan. But he’s not that particular kind of fool. You may take it from me, Madame, that the price won’t be paid till you have delivered the goods. You won’t get more than a few thousands in advance until Miss Daisy is actually sitting on a throne with a gold crown on her head.”
“There is no crown in Megalia,” said the King. “There never was. If there had been it would not be there now. I should have brought it with me when I made my scoot.”
“Donovan won’t bother about that point,” said Gorman. “In fact, I expect he’d buy a new crown in any case. He wouldn’t like the idea of his daughter appearing in anything second-hand. What he wants for her is the right to wear a crown.”
“That,” said the King, “is exactly the pinching shoe. That she cannot have. We are at a dying—no, a dead lock.”
“Somehow,” said Madame, “we must have the money. If that girl, that miss, who is more imbecile than all other jeunes filles—if she obtains that rope of pearls from Goldsturmer, those pearls which ought to be mine, I shall go mad and take poison, very terrible poison, and die in front of your eyes, Konrad.”
With a view to showing how mad she could go if she tried, she threw her brandy glass on the floor and hacked at it with the heel of her shoe. The carpets in Beaufort’s hotel have the softest and deepest pile of any carpets in Europe. Madame’s first two or three hacks did no more than snap the stem of the glass. To complete its destruction she stood up and stamped on it.
Gorman may have feared that she would trample on him next. He told me that she really was a very alarming sight. Stimulated by terror, his mind worked quickly.
“Look here,” he said to the King, “I’ve got a suggestion to make. Get Madame to sit down and keep quiet for a few minutes.”
The King had an experience, gathered during six years of intimacy, of Madame’s ways. He knew what to do with her. He got another glass of brandy and a box of cigarettes. He set them on a table beside a deep armchair. Madame suffered herself to be led to the chair.
“Now, my friend Gorman,” said the King, “if you have a key which will open the dead lock, make it trot out.”
“What Donovan wants,” said Gorman, “is a kingdom for his daughter. Not Megalia in particular, but some kind of right to wear a crown. Any other kingdom would do as well.”
“But there is no other,” said the King. “In all the courts of Europe there is no other king in such a damned hole as I am, no other king who would sell even if he could.”
“I don’t know Megalia well,” said Gorman, “but there must surely be some outlying corner of that interesting country—an island, for instance—which you could make over, sporting, mineral and royal rights, to Donovan; just as England gave Heligoland to the Germans and somebody or other, probably the Turks, gave Cyprus to the English. The thing is constantly done.”
“But the Emperor,” said the King. “Again and always the Emperor. All roads lead to Rome. All Real Politik brings us in the end back to the Emperor.”