Half an hour later the adventurer left the Palace, bearing in his pocket a draft upon the private banking house of Mendelsohn, in the Jägerstrasse in Berlin, for two hundred and fifty thousand marks. In return for that draft the wily Spaniard signed a declaration that he had invented the whole story, and that there was not a word of truth in it. It was only, however, when I placed that document into the hands of the Crown-Prince that His Imperial Highness breathed freely again. SECRET NUMBER NINE THE CROWN-PRINCE'S ESCAPADE IN LONDON It was five o'clock on a bright September morning when His Imperial Highness climbed with unsteady gait the three flights of stairs leading to the handsome flat which he sometimes rented in a big block of buildings half-way along Jermyn Street when he made secret visits to London. As his personal-adjutant and keeper of his secrets I had been awaiting him for hours. I heard him fumbling with the latch-key, and, rising, went along the hall and opened the door. "Hulloa, Heltzendorff!" he exclaimed in a thick, husky voice. "_Himmel!_ I'm very glad to be back." "And I am glad to see Your Highness back," I said. "I was beginning to fear that something unpleasant had happened. I tell you frankly, I do not like you going out like this alone in London. Somebody is certain to discover you one day." "Oh, bosh! my dear Heltzendorff. You are just like a pastor--always preaching." And as he tossed his crush hat upon the table and divested himself of his evening overcoat he gave vent to a half-drunken laugh, and then, just as he was, in his dress-coat and crumpled shirt-front, with the stains of overnight wine upon it, he curled himself upon the couch, saying: "Tell that idiot of a valet not to disturb me. I'm tired." "But don't you think you ought to go to bed?" I queried. "Too tired to undress, Heltzendorff--too tired," he declared with an inane grin. "Oh, I've had a time--phew! my head--such a time! Oh, old Lung Ching is a real old sport!" And then he settled himself and closed his eyes--surely a fine spectacle for the German nation if he could then have been publicly exhibited. His mention of Lung Ching caused me to hold my breath. That wily Chinaman kept an establishment in the underworld of Limehouse, an opium den of the worst description, frequented by yellow men and white women of the most debased class. A year before one of the Crown-Prince's friends, an attaché at the Embassy on Carlton House Terrace, had introduced him to the place. The fascinations of the opium pipe had attracted him, and he had been there many times to smoke and to dream, but always accompanied by others. The night before, however, he had declared his intention to go out alone, as he had been invited to dine by a great German financier living in Park Lane. It was now evident, however, that he had not been there, but had gone alone to that terrible den kept by Lung Ching.