How the
London lawyers had been duped the Count had not really the slightest
idea. He regretted the incident, and (coldly) wished us a very good
morning.
There was nothing for it but to return as best we might to the
Erzherzog Johann, crestfallen, and telegraph particulars to the
police in London.
Charles and I ran across post-haste to England to track down the
villain. At Southampton Row we found the legal firm by no means
penitent; on the contrary, they were indignant at the way we had
deceived them. An impostor had written to them on Lebenstein
paper from Meran to say that he was coming to London to negotiate
the sale of the schloss and surrounding property with the
famous millionaire, Sir Charles Vandrift; and Sir Charles had
demonstratively recognised him at sight as the real Count von
Lebenstein. The firm had never seen the present Graf at all, and
had swallowed the impostor whole, so to speak, on the strength of
Sir Charles's obvious recognition. He had brought over as documents
some most excellent forgeries--facsimiles of the originals--which,
as our courier and interpreter, he had every opportunity of
examining and inspecting at the Meran lawyers'. It was a deeply-laid
plot, and it had succeeded to a marvel. Yet, all of it depended
upon the one small fact that we had accepted the man with the long
moustache in the hall of the schloss as the Count von Lebenstein on
his own representation.
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