Ch. 14: Jennie Becomes a Special Police Officer

When Jennie returned to Vienna, and was once more installed in her luxurious rooms at the Palace Steinheimer, she received in due time a copy of the Daily Bugle, sent to her under cover as a registered letter. The girl could not complain that the editor had failed to make the most of the news she had sent him. As she opened out the paper she saw the great black headlines that extended across two columns, and the news itself dated not from Venice, but from Vienna, was in type much larger than that ordinarily used in the paper, and was double-leaded. The headings were startling enough:--

PHANTOM GOLD.

THE MOST GIGANTIC ROBBERY OF MODERN TIMES.

THE AUSTRIAN WAR CHEST DYNAMITED.

TWENTY MILLION POUNDS IN COIN LOOTED.

APPALLING DISASTER AT THE TREASURY IN VIENNA.

FOUR MEN KILLED, AND SIXTEEN OTHERS MORE OR LESS SERIOUSLY INJURED.



"Dear me!" the Princess cried, peering over Jennie's shoulder at these amazing headings, "how like home that looks. The Bugle doesn't at all resemble a London journal; it reminds me of a Chicago paper's account of a baseball match; a baseball match when Chicago was winning, of course, and when Anson had lined out the ball from the plate to the lake front, and brought three men in on a home run at a critical point in the game."

"Good gracious!" cried Jennie, "what language are you speaking? Is it slang, or some foreign tongue?"

"It is pure Chicagoese, Jennie, into which I occasionally lapse even here in prim Vienna. I would like to see a good baseball match, with the Chicago nine going strong. Let us abandon this effete monarchy, Jennie, and pay a visit to America."

"I'll go with pleasure if you will tell me first who robbed the war chest. If you can place your dainty forefinger on the spot that conceals two hundred million florins in gold, I'll go anywhere with you."

"Oh, yes, that reminds me. I spoke to my husband this morning, and asked him if he could get you enrolled as a special detective, and he said there would be some difficulty in obtaining such an appointment for a woman. Would you have any objection to dressing up as a nice young man, Jennie?"

"I would very much rather not; I hope you didn't suggest that to the Prince."

The Princess laughed merrily and shook her head.

"No, I told him that I believed that you would solve the mystery if anyone could, and, remembering what you had done in that affair of my diamonds, my husband has the greatest faith in your powers as an investigator; but he fears the authorities here will be reluctant to allow a woman to have any part in the search. They have very old-fashioned ideas about women in Austria, and think her proper place is presiding over a tea-table."

"Well, if they only knew it," said Jennie archly,