The Grand Babylon Hotel

Excerpt: ...The Prince rowed to the nearest steps, tied up the boat, and they landed. It was six o'clock in the morning, and a day of gorgeous sunlight had opened. Few people were about at that early hour. 'And now, what next?' said the Prince. 'I must take you to an hôtel.' 'I am in your hands,' she acquiesced, with a smile which sent the blood racing through his veins. He perceived now that she was tired and overcome, suffering from a sudden and natural reaction. At the Hôtel Wellington the Prince told the sleepy door-keeper that they had come by the early train from Bruges, and wanted breakfast at once. It was absurdly early, but a common English sovereign will work wonders in any Belgian hôtel, and in a very brief time Nella and the Prince were breakfasting on the verandah of the hôtel upon chocolate that had been specially and hastily brewed for them. 'I never tasted such excellent chocolate,' claimed the Prince. The statement was wildly untrue, for the Hôtel Wellington is not celebrated for its chocolate. Nevertheless Nella replied enthusiastically, 'Nor I.' Then there was a silence, and Nella, feeling possibly that she had been too ecstatic, remarked in a very matter-of-fact tone: 'I must telegraph to Papa instantly.' Thus it was that Theodore Racksole received the telegram which drew him away from Detective Marshall. Chapter Sixteen THE WOMAN WITH THE RED HAT 'THERE is one thing, Prince, that we have just got to settle straight off,' said Theodore Racksole. They were all three seated-Racksole, his daughter, and Prince Aribert-round a dinner table in a private room at the Hôtel Wellington. Racksole had duly arrived by the afternoon boat, and had been met on the quay by the other two. They had dined early, and Racksole had heard the full story of the adventures by sea and land of Nella and the Prince. As to his own adventure of the previous night he said very little, merely explaining, with as little detail as possible, that Dimmock's...