Chapter 18: The Gangsters

The Tsar of all the Bulgars, wearing a green and yellow wrapper, and bright blue slippers over his enormous flat feet, exhibited considerable nervousness as we entered the house.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” he said; “I trust that nobody will misunderstand me. Heaven is my witness——”

“What’s the matter?” asked Smith tersely.

“The Princess Pudelstoff is screaming. I don’t know why; I didn’t go near her——”

We hurried up stairs. The door of the Princess’ room was open, the light burning. The Princess sat up in bed, tears rolling down her gross, fat face, screaming at the top of her voice; while beside her, in Phrygian night-cap and pajamas, stood King Constantine.

He had her by the elbow and was jerking her arm and shouting at her: “Shut your fool head! Stop it! There’s nothing the matter with you. You’ve been dreaming!”

Smith went straight to the bed, shoved Constantine aside, and laid a soothing hand on the Princess’ shoulder.

“I’m a physician,” he said in his pleasant, reassuring voice. “What is the trouble, Princess?”

“There’s turrible doin’s in this here house!” she bawled. “I peeked through the key-hole! Them there Bolsheviki next door is fixin’ to blow us all up. I seen the bomb a-sizzlin’ and a-fizzlin’ on the floor like it was just ready to bust! And then I run and got into bed and I let out a screech——”

“It’s all right,” said Smith kindly. “It was just a bad dream. There isn’t any bomb. Nobody is going to harm you——”

“I didn’t dream it! I——”

“Yes, you did. Calm yourself, Princess. You have eaten something which has disagreed with you.”

She ceased her screaming at that suggestion and considered it, the tears still streaming over her features. Then she began to blubber again and shook her head.

“I ain’t et hoggish,” she insisted. “If I had et hoggish I’d think I drempt it. But I ain’t et hoggish. That wasn’t no dream. No, sir! I had went to bed, but I was fidgety, like I had a load of coal onto my stummick. And by and by I heard them Bolsheviki next door whisperin’. And by and by I heard a fizzlin’ noise like they was makin’ highballs in there.

“Thinks I to myself that sounds good if true. So I gets up and I lights up and I peeks through the key hole. And I seen King—I mean Monsieur Xenos, and Monsieur Itchenuff, and Puppsky and Wildkatz and a long, black box on the floor in the room next door, and somethin’ sticking out of it which fizzled without smokin’——”

“It was all a dream, madame,” interposed Smith soothingly. And to my surprise, he took from his inner breast-pocket a small, flat medicine case.

“A glass of water and two spoons, please,” he said to Clelia. And she went away to fetch them.

There was another glass on the wash-stand. In this he rinsed a clinical thermometer and inserted it under the tongue of the sobbing Princess.

Thusis and I stood near him, silent. King Constantine and the Bulgarian Tsar appeared to be unsympathetic and at the same time slightly nervous.

“If she’d stop gorging herself,” remarked Tino, “she’d have no nightmares.”

“I seen you in there! Yes I did!” retorted the Princess in another access of wrath and fright, the thermometer wagging wildly between her lips. “And I seen you too!” she went on, pointing at King Ferdinand, who stared wildly back at her out of his eyes of an alarmed pig and wrinkled his enormous nose at her.

“Don’t tell me I was dreamin’,” she added scornfully, “nothing like that.”

Clelia came with the two spoons and glass of water; Smith selected a phial, mixed the dose, withdrew the thermometer, shook it, examined it, washed it at the basin, and, returning to his patient, administered a teaspoonful of medicine.

Then, in the other glass, he dissolved a powder, gave her three teaspoonfuls of that, and placed the two glasses on the night table beside her bed.

“If you happen to awake,” he said gently, “take a teaspoonful of each. But I think you’ll sleep, madame. And in the morning you’ll be all right.”

He turned on King Constantine and the Tsar so suddenly that they both took impulsive steps backward as though apprehensive of being kicked.

“The Princess needs quiet and rest, gentlemen,” said Smith. “Kindly retire.”

“Perhaps I’d better sit beside her for a while,” began Constantine, but Smith interrupted him:

“I’ll call you into consultation if I want you, Monsieur Xenos.” His voice had a very slight ring to it; the ex-King of Greece looked at him for a moment, then winced and backed out of the room, followed by King Ferdinand who seemed to be in a hurry and crowded on his heels like an agitated pachyderm.

Clelia, who had remained mute and motionless, looking at Smith all the while, now came toward him. And in the girl’s altered face I saw, reflected, deeper emotions than I had supposed her youthful heart could harbor.

“Do you need me?” she asked. “I am at your service.”

“Thank you, there is nothing more,” said Smith pleasantly. He turned to include Thusis in kindly but unmistakable dismissal.

Clelia gave him a long, slow look of exquisite submission; Thusis sent an odd, irresolute glance at me. As she passed me, following her sister, her lips formed the message: “I wish to see you to-night.”

When they had gone Smith shut and locked the door, and with a slight motion to me to accompany him, walked over to the bed, seated himself beside it, and took the fat hand of the Princess Pudelstoff in his as though to test her pulse.

The lady rolled her eyes at us but lay still, her mottled cheeks still glistening with partly dried tears.

“What’s on your mind, Princess?” inquired Smith in a soft, caressing voice.

“Hey?” she exclaimed in visible alarm, and evidently preparing to scream again.

“Hush. Don’t excite yourself, madame,” he said in his pleasant, reassuring way. “There is no occasion for alarm at all.”

“Am I a sick woman?” she demanded anxiously. “Is that what you’re a-goin’ to hand me? Is it?”

“No, you’re not physically ill. You have no temperature except as much as might be due to sudden shock.”

“I got the scare of my young life all right,” she muttered. “Say, Doc, was it a dream? On the level now, was it?”

“Probably——”

“Honest to God?” she insisted.