‘Prince Aribert,’ Nella said, ‘shall I tell you what I think?’ She leaned back in her chair, and looked at him out of half-closed eyes. His pale, thin, distinguished face held her gaze as if by some fascination. There could be no mistaking this man for anything else but a Prince. ‘If you will,’ he said. ‘Prince Eugen is the victim of a plot.’ ‘You think so?’ ‘I am perfectly convinced of it.’ ‘But why? What can be the object of a plot against him?’ ‘That is a point of which you should know more than me,’ she remarked drily. ‘Ah! Perhaps, perhaps,’ he said. ‘But, dear Miss Racksole, why are you so sure?’ ‘There are several reasons, and they are connected with Mr Dimmock. Did you ever suspect, your Highness, that that poor young man was not entirely loyal to you?’ ‘He was absolutely loyal,’ said the Prince, with all the earnestness of conviction. ‘A thousand pardons, but he was not.’ ‘Miss Racksole, if any other than yourself made that assertion, I would- -I would--’ ‘Consign them to the deepest dungeon in Posen?’ she laughed, lightly. ‘Listen.’ And she told him of the incidents which had occurred in the night preceding his arrival in the hotel. ‘Do you mean, Miss Racksole, that there was an understanding between poor Dimmock and this fellow Jules?’ ‘There was an understanding.’ ‘Impossible!’ ‘Your Highness, the man who wishes to probe a mystery to its root never uses the word “impossible”. But I will say this for young Mr Dimmock. I think he repented, and I think that it was because he repented that he-- er--died so suddenly, and that his body was spirited away.’ ‘Why has no one told me these things before?’ Aribert exclaimed. ‘Princes seldom hear the truth,’ she said. He was astonished at her coolness, her firmness of assertion, her air of complete acquaintance with the world. ‘Miss Racksole,’ he said, ‘if you will permit me to say it, I have never in my life met a woman like you. May I rely on your sympathy--your support?’ ‘My support, Prince? But how?’ ‘I do not know,’ he replied. ‘But you could help me if you would. A woman, when she has brain, always has more brain than a man.’ ‘Ah!’ she said ruefully, ‘I have no brains, but I do believe I could help you.’ What prompted her to make that assertion she could not have explained, even to herself. But she made it, and she had a suspicion--a prescience- -that it would be justified, though by what means, through what good fortune, was still a mystery to her. ‘Go to Berlin,’ she said. ‘I see that you must do that; you have no alternative. As for the rest, we shall see. Something will occur. I shall be here. My father will be here. You must count us as your friends.’