That sunny afternoon the Crown-Prince had sprawled himself on the plush lounge of the smoking car as the train travelled upon that picturesque line between Genoa and the French frontier at Ventimiglia, the line which follows the coast for six hours. With the tideless sapphire Mediterranean lapping the yellow beach on the one side and high brown rocks upon the other, we went through Savona, Albenga, the old-world Porto Maurizio to the glaring modern town of San Remo and palm-embowered Bordighera, that beautiful Italian Riviera that you and I know so well. "Listen, Heltzendorff," his Highness exclaimed suddenly between the whiffs of his cigarette. "In Nice I may disappear for a day or two. I may be missing. But if I am, please don't raise a fuss about it. I'm incognito, and nobody will know. I may be absent for seven days. If I am not back by that time then you may make inquiry." "But the Commissary of Police Eckardt! He will surely know?" I remarked in surprise. "No. He won't know. I shall evade him as I've so often done before," replied His Imperial Highness. "I tell you of my intentions so that you may curb the activities of our most estimable friend. Tell him not to worry, and he will be paid a thousand marks on the day Count von Grünau reappears." I smiled, for I saw the influence of the eternal feminine. "No, Heltzendorff. You are quite mistaken," he said, reading my thoughts, and putting down his cigarette end. "There is no lady in this case. I am out here for secret purposes of my own. For that reason I take you into my confidence rather than that unnecessary inquiry should be made and some of those infernal journalists get hold of the fact that the Count von Grünau and the Crown-Prince are one and the same person. I was a fool to take this saloon. I ought to have travelled as an ordinary passenger, I know, but," he laughed, "this is really comfortable and, after all, what do we care what the world thinks--eh? Surely we can afford to laugh at it when all the honours of the game are already in our hands." And at that moment we ran into the pretty, flower-decked station of San Remo, the place freshly painted for the attraction of the winter visitors who annually went south for sunshine. His words mystified me, but I became even more mystified by his actions a few days later. I was in ignorance that a fortnight before Hermann Hardt, one of His Highness's couriers, had left Potsdam and on arrival at Nice had rented for three months the fine Villa Lilas--the winter residence of the American millionaire leather merchant, James G. Jamieson, of Boston, who had gone yachting to Japan.