Flashman And The Tiger

At the sight of Blowitz on the platform, my cares dissolved. He was a trifle plumper in the cheek, a shade greyer in the whisker, but still the same joyful little bonhomme, rolling forward waving his cane with glad cries, fairly leaping up to embrace me and dam' near butting me under the chin, chattering nineteen to the dozen as he led me out to a fiacre, and not letting me get a word in until we were seated at the self-same table in Voisin’s, when he had to leave off to attend to the ma’itre. I couldn’t help grinning at him across the table, he looked so confounded cheery.

"Well, it’s famous to see you again, old Blow," says I, when he’d ordered and filled our glasses. "Here’s to you, and to this mysterious lady. Now—who is she … and what does she want?"

He drank and wiped his whiskers, business-like. "The Princess Kralta. But of blood the most ancient in Europe, descended from Stefan Bathory, Arnulf of Carinthia, Barbarossa … name whom you will, she is de la royaute la plus royale—and landless, as the best monarchs are. But rich, to judge from the state she keeps—oh, and received everywhere, on terms with the highest. She is befriended of the German Emperor, for example, and—" he shot me a quizzy look "—of our old acquaintance Prince Bismarck. No-no-no," he added hastily, "her intimacy with him is of a … how shall I say? … of an unconventional kind."

"I’ve met some of his unconventional intimates, and I didn’t take to ’em a bit. If she’s one of his—"

"She is not one of anyone’s! I mention Bismarck only because when I first met the Princess she brought me a friendly message from him. C’est vrai, absolument! Can you guess what it was? That he bears me no ill will for my activities at the Congress of Berlin!" He shook his head, chuckling. "Can you believe it, eh?"

"No—and neither will you if you’ve any sense. That bastard never forgave or forgot in his life. Very well, ne’er mind him—what more about this Princess? Is she married?" It’s always best to know beforehand.

"There is a husband." He shrugged. "But he does not figure." "Uh-huh … so, what does she want with me?"

He gave a little snort of laughter. "What do women ever want with you? Ah, but there is something else also." He leaned forward to whisper, looking droll. "She wishes to know a secret … a secret that she believes only you can tell her."

He sat back as the food arrived, with a cautioning gesture in case I made some indiscreet outcry, I suppose. Since I knew the little blighter’s delight in mysterious hints I just waded into the grub.

"You do not ask what it is?" he grumbled. "Ah, but of course—le flegme Britannique! Never mind, you will raise a brow when you hear, I promise!"

And I did, for I never heard an unlikelier tale in my life—all of it true, for I saw it confirmed in the little blighter’s memoirs a few years ago, and why should he lie to posterity? But even at the time I believed it because, being a crook myself, I can spot a straight tongue, and Blowitz had one.

He’d met the Princess Kralta at a diplomatic dinner, and plainly fallen head over heels—as he often did, in his harmless romantic way—and she had equally plainly given him every encouragement. "You have seen her likeness, but believe me, it tells you nothing! How to describe her … her magnetisme, the light of charm in those great blue eyes, the little toss of her silky blonde hair as she smiles, revealing the brilliancy of her small teeth—you found her portrait forbidding, non? My friend, when you see those queenly features melt into the tenderest of expressions, the animation of her darting glances, the melodious quality of her voice … ah, mais ravissante—"

"Whoa, steady lad, mind the cutlery. Liked her, did you?"

"My friend, I was enchanted!" He sighed like a ruptured poodle. "I confess it, I who have encountered the charms of the loveliest women in Europe, that the Princess Kralta wove a spell about me. And it is not only her person that allures, her exquisite elegance, her divinity of shape and movement—"

"Aye, she’s well titted out, I noticed."

"—but the beauty of her nature, her frank friendliness and ease of deportment, the candour of her confidences …"

He babbled through the next two courses, but don’t suppose that I despised his raptures—there are women like that, and as often as not they’re not the ones of perfect feature. Angie Burdett-Coutts was no radiant looker, but she’d have caused a riot in the College of Cardinals simply by walking by, whereas the Empress of Austria, of whom more presently, was perfection of face and figure and quite as exciting as a plate of mashed turnip. I’d seen enough of la Kralta in her picture to believe that she might well have the magic, February face or no.