The Great ImpersonationOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The Great Impersonation
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Spy stories
“And the money?” Seaman continued, blinking rapidly. “One hundred
thousand pounds, and more?”
“I understood that was a gift,” Dominey replied. “If the German Secret
Service, however, cares to formulate a claim and sue me--”
The Princess suddenly interrupted. Her eyes seemed on fire.
“What are you, you two?” she cried, stretching out her hands towards
Schmidt and Seaman. “Are you lumps of earth--clods--creatures without
courage and intelligence? You can let him stand there--the Englishman
who has murdered my lover, who has befooled you? You let him stand there
and mock you, and you do and say nothing! Is his life a sacred thing?
Has he none of your secrets in his charge?”
“The great God above us!” Seaman groaned, with a sudden white horror in
his face. “He has the Prince's memoirs! He has the Kaiser's map!”
“On the contrary,” Dominey replied, “both are deposited at the Foreign
Office. We hope to find them very useful a little later on.”
Seaman sprang forward like a tiger and went down in a heap as he almost
threw himself upon Dominey's out-flung fist. Schmidt came stealing
across the room, and from underneath his cuff something gleamed.
“You are two to one!” the Princess cried passionately, as both
assailants hesitated. “I would to God that I had a weapon, or that I
were a man!”
“My dear Princess,” a good-humoured voice remarked from the window,
“four to two the other way, I think, what?”
Eddy Pelham, his hands in his pockets, but a very alert gleam in his
usually vacuous face, stood in the windowed doorway. From behind him,
two exceedingly formidable-looking men slipped into the room. There was
no fight, not even a struggle. Seaman, who had never recovered from the
shock of his surprise, and was now completely unnerved, was handcuffed
in a moment, and Schmidt disarmed. The latter was the first to break the
curious silence.
“What have I done?” he demanded. “Why am I treated like this?”
“Doctor Schmidt?” Eddy asked pleasantly.
“That is my name, sir,” was the fierce reply. “I have just landed from
East Africa. We knew nothing of the war when we started. I came to
expose that man. He is an impostor--a murderer! He has killed a German
nobleman.”
“He has committed _lese majeste_!” Seaman gasped. “He has deceived the
Kaiser! He has dared to sit in his presence as the Baron Von Ragastein!”
The young man in flannels glanced across at Dominey and smiled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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