CHAPTER VII.

GILDED SIRS WHO ARE NOT WISE.

After a pleasant voyage the Russia arrived, and one May morning I walked

into the Northwestern Railway station in Liverpool to take the train for

London. The bonds were in a little handbag, and I was free to look

around. Everything was novel and strange, and all things told me I was

in a foreign land. I had, like most young people, a particularly good

opinion of myself and something of an idea as to my own importance.

We arrived in London amid a drizzling rain, and I was much impressed

with the mighty roar of the traffic in the streets. We drove to Langham

place, where I had a regular English tea, and liked it immensely, too.

The next night I left Victoria Station for Dover, and crossing the

Channel to Ostend, went through to Brussels and stopped there, having

wanted, ever since boyhood, to visit the field of Waterloo. I looked

through the city that day, visiting the famous City Hall and one of the

art galleries. Retiring early I arose early and drove out to the plain

immortalized by the giant struggle of those valiant hosts, but did not

purchase any of the relics which were freely offered. These have been

sold by shiploads to two generations of visitors. Returning to Brussels,

I paid my bill at the Hotel de Paris, and was amused over the

inventiveness of the proprietor in making charges--towels, candles,

soap, attendance, paper, envelopes, being among them.

Going to the station I bought my ticket for Frankfort--that old town I

was destined to see so much of during the next few years. On my journey

I would pass through Cologne, and from there the railway skirts the bank

of the Rhine. This being my first visit to Europe, I was intensely

curious to see everything, especially the Cathedral at Cologne, and was

eager to linger a few days along the banks of the Rhine. But I was more

eager to complete the bond negotiations, and wisely resolved to go

direct to Frankfort, sell the bonds, then, with the money in my pocket

and all anxiety over, I would be in a state of mind to enjoy a short

holiday.

I traveled through Belgium and some parts of Germany by daylight, and

was, as most Americans are who travel on the Continent, shocked to see

the employment of women. Soon after leaving Brussels I saw the, to me,

novel sight of a number of women shoveling coal, handling the shovel

like men. In other places I saw them laboring in the brick yards,

digging and wheeling clay, and everywhere they were to be seen working

at men's work in the fields.

A traveler in my compartment proved a most entertaining companion. He

described himself to me as one who "went about pottering over a lot of

antiquities and fooling around generally."

But my friend, the pottering old antiquary, gave me something of a

surprise. At Chalours all of our fellow travelers in the compartment

left us. Two of them were voluble French women, and they kept it up with

amazing energy for the six hours from Brussels to Chalours. At every

unusual swaying of the car there would be a volley of "Mon Dieus!" and

ear-piercing exclamations, and it was certainly a relief when they left.

Bringing out a box of cigars, and my companion producing a flask of

wine, we soon became confidential. Presently, to my great amusement, my

Old Antiquary, warmed by the wine, confided to me that he was a

detective police officer and chief of the secret service at Antwerp,

that he was then working on a famous case, and had been shadowing one of

the ladies who had journeyed with us from Brussels. Before leaving

Brussels, he had discovered his quarry was to quit the train, and as he

had to go on to Mayence, he had turned the business over to a

confederate.

I was young, and no doubt he thought me innocent; certainly he did not

withhold his confidence. This is the case he was investigating:

There was a wealthy gentleman by the name of Van Tromp living in

Antwerp, a widower, 70 years of age, the father of a grown-up family,

and many times a grandfather. It had been his custom to go to

Baden-Baden every Summer, spending money freely both in pleasure and in

the famous gambling resorts there. The last time he had met a woman, the

Countess Winzerode, one of the many adventuresses to be found there, and

speedily became infatuated. This Van Tromp was a descendant of old

Admiral Van Tromp, who, in the mighty life-and-death struggle between

Holland and Spain, and in the two wars with England, the first when

Cromwell ruled, the second when the Second Charles was on the throne,

held up the fame and glory of Holland. In one case he swept the proud

navies of Spain from the seas and carried the Dutch flag around the

world. In the other, he was only vanquished after stubborn sea-fights

lasting for days, and only ended then because the stout admiral lay on

his deck with an English bullet in his heart. This Van Tromp was the

heir of the fame and the wealth of all the Van Tromps, and both had gone

on accumulating for 300 years.

The self-styled Countess knew all this, and, as the sequel shows, knew

her man. She was 40, had been beautiful, was still comely, with good

figure, fair-haired, but with steel-blue eyes. She spoke many languages

and had dwelt in every land from Petersburg to Paris. It is needless to

tell how they first met or of the intimacy that sprang up between them,

but I will merely say in passing that within five days of their first

meeting he had given her a magnificent diamond bracelet, which had been

in his family more than a century. This alarmed his two daughters, who

were terrified at the mere suspicion that their father was in earnest,

and might possibly present them with a stepmother, above all, a

comparatively young stepmother, and, so far as physique went, a

magnificent animal, with promise of a long life--so long that her rights

of dower would make a cut in the Van Tromp estates and treasures, which

might well cause the old Admiral to rouse himself from his three-century

sleep in Dordrecht Church and once more walk these glimpses of the moon

in protest of the sacrilege. Then the scandal of a Countess-adventuress

becoming a Van Tromp--head of that family, too! They knew of his

penchant for the Countess, and cared nothing for it, until, with a

feeling akin to horror they observed at the dress ball one night the

Countess airing the historic bracelet. It would require a volume to

relate the scenes that followed in the Van Tromp domicile on this

paralyzing discovery; but prayers, tears and histrionic touches were all

met by the stolid reply of Van Tromp: "I please myself."

As a last resort the daughters appealed to the Countess, offering all

their ready cash and a pension if she would only disappear. But visions

of the Van Tromp diamonds and of the Van Tromp bank account were in her

head and she was deaf to every appeal. In fact, she despised these

heavy, matter-of-fact Dutch ladies, and rather gloried to think that she

would soon be the female head of the Van Tromp house and stepmother to

these two highly respectable dames, who would perforce have to live in

her shadow. But then, of course, the Countess was a woman, and it is to

be feared that even good women love to triumph over others. She, of

course, could have no love for this portly old gentleman of seventy.

But it is pitiful to think he was madly infatuated. The poor old man, in

spite of his unromantic appearance, had warm blood in his veins and

plenty of romance in his heart. At last, in spite of gossip and

opposition, they were married, and then, instead of settling down, as

the happy groom had hoped, to a life of wedded bliss in one of his

country houses at Dordrecht, Lady Van Tromp insisted on spending her

honeymoon in Paris. There they went, and the very day of their arrival

the bride resumed a liaison with a beggarly count, who, not being an

actual criminal, yet was written black enough in the books of the Paris

police, and for whom the Countess had as warm an admiration as one of

her cold, calculating nature was capable of feeling.

Van Tromp speedily found his dream of bliss blown to the winds, but he

was not so blind as not to see that his wife not only did not love him,

but was false to him as well. Poor old Van Tromp felt he had made his

last throw for happiness, and hoping against hope, dreamed she in time

would learn to appreciate his devotion and would love him, and so tried

to persuade himself of her truth. The first anniversary of the marriage

found them at Baden-Baden, and there the unhappy husband, thinking to

give his wife a pleasant surprise, entered her chamber at an unusual

hour bearing a diamond necklace for a present, and found her in a

position which could no longer leave any doubt as to her faithlessness.

Seizing a chair he felled her companion, who never stirred again; but

the shock was too great for the husband, who himself fell to the floor

and instantly expired--the doctors said of heart disease, and I think

they were right. This event was only a few weeks old. The will had been

read, and it was found that he had literally left everything "to my

wife, Elizabeth."

Here my friend, the chief of police and a distant relative of Van Tromp,

came to the front, determined quietly on his own account to investigate

Lady Van Tromp. He found this last was at least her third venture on

the stormy sea of matrimony. He had a fancy that some one of her

husbands might still be living and undiscovered. If this could be

proved, then her marriage to Van Tromp was no marriage, and the ducats,

dollars and diamonds bequeathed by Van Tromp to "my wife, Elizabeth,"

would instantly melt into air--into very thin air, so far as the

Countess was concerned; provided, of course, they had not actually

passed into her clutches. In fact, they were legally hers, for the will

had been admitted to probate. Those of the family objecting could offer

no valid opposition, and she had been put in possession, but, by a

strange neglect on her part, left everything intact, save a deposit of

300,000 gulden in the Bank of Amsterdam, which she secured and set out

for Naples with a new lover.

The detective--whom I will call Amstel--discovered that she had first

been married when only 15 years old to a young Swiss in Geneva, who soon

left her and fled to America. He had subsequently returned to Europe,

but Amstel was unable to discover his whereabouts or if he was living.

He suspected that the Swiss was not only alive but in communication with

the Countess, and that she, in fact, might be his legal wife. He had

followed the Countess from Naples to Paris. There she left her lover and

was now on her way to Nuremberg, as Amstel believed, to meet her first

husband, but she had arranged to remain a few days with some old friends

of hers. Every movement she made there would be watched, while Amstel,

going on to Cologne to look up some clues, intended to wait there until

informed that she had departed, and when the train arrived at Cologne he

proposed to enter it and follow my lady on, hoping to witness a meeting

between her and the much hoped-for husband. Happily we had arrived at

Cologne at this point in the story, and as Amstel was to remain here we

had to say good-bye; but for the whole twenty minutes of my stay we

walked up and down the platform talking eagerly of the case. I had

become much interested, so deeply, indeed, that had I had leisure I

certainly should have turned amateur detective and joined Amstel.

[Illustration: LONDON POLICEMAN.--ST. PAUL'S IN DISTANCE.]

The train started, and, promising to write me in New York the outcome of

the case, we shook hands warmly and parted. He wrote me twice, and the

following year I returned to Europe and met Amstel at Brussels. We had a

very delightful time together, during which he told me the sequel of the

Van Tromp episode. Instead of one, the Countess had two husbands living;

but the Van Tromps preferred to buy off the woman at a good round sum

rather than have a public scandal.

Amstel interviewed the Countess, and gave her the choice between arrest

and a full release of all claims on the Van Tromp property for the sum

of 100,000 gulden. She made a hard fight, but at last gave in

gracefully. But my chapter has grown too long already, and I will close

it with the remark that I myself met the lady at Wiesbaden in 1871, and

became acquainted with the brilliant adventuress. She will appear again

in the sequel.