s brought it tenderly in its wicker cradle, inserted the corkscrew
with mathematical precision, and drew the cork, which he offered for his
master's inspection. Eugen nodded, and told him to put it down. Aribert
watched with intense interest. He could not for an instant believe
that Hans was not the very soul of fidelity, and yet, despite himself,
Racksole's words had caused him a certain uneasiness. At that moment
Prince Eugen murmured across the table:

'Aribert, I withdraw my promise. Observe that, I withdraw it.' Aribert
shook his head emphatically, without removing his gaze from Hans. The
white-haired servant perfunctorily dusted his napkin round the neck of
the bottle of Romanee-Conti, and poured out a glass. Aribert trembled
from head to foot.

Eugen took up the glass and held it to the light.

'Don't drink it,' said Aribert very quietly. 'It is poisoned.'

'Poisoned!' exclaimed Prince Eugen.

'Poisoned, sire!' exclaimed old Hans, with an air of profound amazement
and concern, and he seized the glass. 'Impossible, sire. I myself opened
the bottle. No one else has touched it, and the cork was perfect.'

'I tell you it is poisoned,' Aribert repeated.

'Your Highness will pardon an old man,' said Hans, 'but to say that this
wine is poison is to say that I am a murderer. I will prove to you that
it is not poisoned. I will drink it.' And he raised the glass to his
trembling lips. In that moment Aribert saw that old Hans, at any rate,
was not an accomplice of Jules. Springing up from his seat, he knocked
the glass from the aged servitor's hands, and the fragments of it fell
with a light tinkling crash partly on the table and partly on the floor.
The Prince and the servant gazed at one another in a distressing and
terrible silence.

There was a slight noise, and Aribert looked aside. He saw that Eugen's
body had slipped forward limply over the left arm of his chair; the
Prince's arms hung straight and lifeless; his eyes were closed; he was
unconscious.

'Hans!' murmured Aribert. 'Hans! What is this?'

Chapter Twenty-Five THE STEAM LAUNCH

MR TOM JACKSON's notion of making good his escape from the hotel by
means of a steam launch was an excellent one, so far as it went, but
Theodore Racksole, for his part, did not consider that it went quite far
enough.

Theodore Racksole opined, with peculiar glee, that he now had a tangible
and definite clue for the catching of the Grand Babylon's ex-waiter. He
kne