“I took up the photograph,” Mr. Fairbanks continued, “and while I was examining it, the Russian came back. In his hand he held a checkbook. ‘That’s the grand duke himself,’ he said. ‘He will stop in here presently on his way out. There will be two or three members of the suite with him; and, that you may recognize his Highness at once, take a good look at the picture. When he comes in you must do this way: button your coat, please; thanks: now stand anywhere you like and make a low bow. Let me see you make one. Bravo! that is splendid. Only—how shall I say?—do not let your arms hang in that fashion. The grand duke might think you had dropped something and were stooping to pick it up. However, that is a minor matter. It may be that he won’t see you at all. But of all things remember this: under no circumstances must you speak to him unless he first addresses you, and then you must merely answer his question. In other words, do not, I pray you, try to engage him in conversation.’ ‘Does he speak English?’ I asked. I couldn’t help it. I was getting nervous. ‘Now let us have the rubies,’ he said. I took the box out of my breast-pocket and handed it to him. He opened it, drew the cotton aside, and ran his fingers lovingly over the gems. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they will do.’ Then he closed the box again, and put it in the drawer of the table at which he had taken a seat. ‘If,’ he continued, ‘his Highness is satisfied, I will draw a draft for you, and Count Béziatnikoff will sign it. The count,’ he went on to say, ‘is the keeper of the Privy Purse. The draft itself is on the London Rothschilds, but they will cash it at Belmont’s.’ I did not quite like that arrangement: it did not seem entirely businesslike. ‘Your Excellency,’ I said, ‘it is the custom here to have checks for large amounts certified before they are offered in payment.’ But I had to explain what certification meant before he understood me. ‘That is nothing,’ he said, ‘that is nothing. If his Highness is pleased, we will go to Belmont’s together, or, if you prefer, we will sit here over a Sam Ward and let one of the hotel-clerks go to the bank in our stead.’ There seemed to me nothing objectionable in that suggestion; for, after all, I could not exact of anyone, however grand-ducal he might be, to go about with a hundred and ten thousand dollars in his waistcoat.”
“Or in his trousers either.”
“Or in his trousers either, as you very properly put it. Now, Mr. Jones—Mr. Leigh, look at me; Colonel Barker—colonel—I am coming to the point. Where’s that waiter? Gentlemen, see here; watch that man there—watch Jones. Don’t take your eyes off Mr. Jones, but listen, all of you, to what I say. Mr. Leigh, you are looking at me: look at your friend, colonel, I insist. Mr. Jones, you, if you care to, can look at me. Now, gentlemen, now—”
“Have you got a camera concealed about your person?”
“No, I have not, but I have something that came from one. You wait a minute, and I’ll show it to you. I’ll show it to you all. Where did I leave off?”
“In his waistcoat-pocket.”
“Thank you: so I did. Well, gentlemen, we sat there talking as pleasantly as you please. The Russian joked a bit, and said that he wanted a certified check from me—the check for his commission, you remember—and presently he got up and said he would see what was delaying his Highness. So I sat awhile, twirling my thumbs. Five minutes passed, ten minutes passed. I looked at my watch: it was almost half-past two. That draft, I told myself, won’t be cashed today. I went to the window and looked out. I went to the door: there was no one in the hall but a chambermaid. I went back to my seat, and then, moved by my own uneasiness, I opened the drawer of the table. The box was gone! I took the drawer out. It was one that extended the entire width of the table: the further end of it had been cut off. I looked down and in through the place from which I had taken it. I could see into the next room! I pulled the table to one side, and there, just where the drawer had touched the door against which it had stood, was an oblong opening cut through the woodwork of the door itself. I was downstairs in an instant. Gentlemen, the grand duke had gone to Philadelphia that very morning. No such person as Prince Zaroguine lodged in the hotel. The clerk came upstairs with me. ‘That room,’ he
