hotel, careful to keep my veiled face averted from any of the reporters or detectives who were no doubt loitering in the lobby.
The Alpenwalders received us warmly. The baroness answered the door herself, and as we moved into the drawing room of the suite, I could see the chancellor sitting behind the desk, but of Duke Maximilian there was no sign. “Thank you so much for coming,” the baroness said in a fervent tone as she pressed my hands.
“Your note only asked us to call,” I told her. “Have there been any developments? Has the princess returned?”
“Not yet,” she replied, her mouth set in a serious line. “But I know she will come soon. She must.”
The chancellor rose from the desk, gesturing towards a stack of newspapers. “There have been many reports about the bomb, naturally,” he told us. “And we had a call very early this morning from an Inspector Mornaday.”
At the mention of Mornaday’s name, my heart skipped an uncomfortable beat. I exchanged a quick glance with Stoker. “Oh?”
“He came to tell us that it was as Mr. Templeton-Vane surmised—the bomb was no bomb at all, really only a glorified firecracker,” he said. “He wished to pay his respects and apologize personally to the princess, but the baroness and I were able to prevent this by saying Her Serene Highness was in need of rest after the upset of last evening. We also made a statement canceling all official engagements today, which will work quite well, I think, since we are still without a princess,” he added with a moue of regret. He turned to me. “You have done well, Fraulein. So well, in fact, that I am afraid I must prevail upon you once more.”
Beside me, I felt Stoker stiffen like a pointer.
“I think Miss Speedwell has accommodated your schemes quite enough,” Stoker began.
The chancellor held up a hand. “Please,” he said, nearly choking on the word. So startled were we by his pleading that we fell silent and let him continue. He did so with obvious difficulty, speaking slowly, as if extracting each word cost him pain.
“How much do you know of the situation on the Continent?” he asked, but it was apparent the question was rhetorical as he launched into a discussion that echoed the one I had enjoyed with the baroness on our first meeting. “If I told you it was a powder keg, it would not be an exaggeration. Matters are so delicate that all it wants is the slightest spark and—” He spread his fingers upwards, making the gesture of an explosion. “Loyalties are so conflicted and convoluted that if Germany went to war, it would plunge the rest of Europe into chaos.” He paused and went to rummage in a folio of papers, extracting a large map of the Continent. “Look here,” he urged, pointing towards the middle of the map. “The German Empire is colored in blue. You see the change from only a few decades ago?” He laid another map beside it. “With the unification of the German states, the empire has become powerful. Too powerful,” he added under his breath. I surveyed the maps. The earlier one looked like a broken plate, colorful bits strewn across the breadth of Europe, each representing a different tiny German-speaking principality or duchy. The current one was a single terrifying monolith collected under one banner and ruled by the Hohenzollerns from Berlin.
“This was the work of Bismarck,” he said. “But he is a fool. He argued that knitting the German states together under the rule of the empire would make them more powerful, but the only one who has gained from it is the emperor himself.”
“Kaiser Wilhelm,” I finished.
“The second of that name,” the chancellor said with a grave nod. “Those of us outside of the empire had hopes for his father, a great and progressive man. When he ascended to the throne last spring, we believed it was a new beginning for all of us. We did not realize he was doomed,” he added, crossing himself. I had been in Madeira at the time, but I vaguely remembered reading about the three-month reign of Kaiser Frederick. He had been a gentle soul, progressive and forward thinking, unlike his warlike and reactionary son.
The chancellor went on. “For thirty years, Kaiser Frederick bided his time, waiting for his turn to remake Germany, to bring her into the light with the help of his empress.” His empress was of special interest to me. She