“They have pursued me under the impression that I am Frederick Augustus.  Oddly enough, I, too, am Frederick Augustus,” and Armitage smiled.  “I was within a few months of his age, and I had a little brush with Chauvenet and Durand in Geneva in which they captured my cigarette case—­it had belonged to Frederick, and the Archduke gave it to me—­and my troubles began.  The Emperor-king was old and ill; the disorders in Hungary were to cloak the assassination of his successor; then the Archduke Francis, Karl’s reputed son, was to be installed upon the throne.”

“Yes; there has been a conspiracy; I—­”

“And there have been conspirators!  Two of them are safely behind that door; and, somewhat through my efforts, their chief, Winkelried, should now be under arrest in Vienna.  I have had reasons, besides my pledge to Archduke Karl, for taking an active part in these affairs.  A year ago I gave Karl’s repudiation of his second son to Count Ferdinand von Stroebel, the prime minister.  The statement was stolen from him for the Winkelried conspirators by these men we now have locked up in this house.”

The Ambassador’s eyes blazed with excitement as these statements fell one by one from Armitage’s lips; but Armitage went on: 

“I trust that my plan for handling these men will meet with your approval.  They have chartered the George W. Custis, a fruit-carrying steamer lying at Morgan’s wharf in Baltimore, in which they expected to make off after they had finished with me.  At one time they had some idea of kidnapping me; and it isn’t my fault they failed at that game.  But I leave it to you, gentlemen, to deal with them.  I will suggest, however, that the presence just now in the West Indies, of the cruiser Sophia Margaret, flying the flag of Austria-Hungary, may be suggestive.”

He smiled at the quick glance that passed between the Ambassador and Judge Claiborne.

Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the minds of all.

“Who are you, John Armitage?”

And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had used throughout: 

“I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel.  The Archduke’s son and I were school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father’s place near the royal lands.  The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings.  Let me make my story short—­I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them.  It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies.”

“Yes, that is true; it is all true!  And you never saw your father—­you never went to him?”

“I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl.  When I appeared before my father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria—­Austria, always Austria!”