The Mobridge news. [volume] (Mobridge, Walworth Co., S.D.) 190?-1917, 1909-05-07
CHAPTER ".
Capt. Basil Marriott and the Black
Thing Which Swung in the Air.

Thing Which Swung in the Air.
What l have to tell you, Michael"
the duchess said, "is quite fragment
airy, and | cannot find the missing
parts Of the puzzle. Alberto never
told me everything. But it amounts
to this. About six months before I
met him drst he was at the court of
Neutrality-suspicious., in Germany. He
was actually engaged to the daughter
OF the reigning Grand Duke Ernst-the
Princess Sophia Marie Eleanora. 1t
was to have been announced in the
papers. 1 remember reading of it my
self as a girl, because. as you know,
we were quite close to Otter, and nat
urally, being on the estate, as it were,
we always felt a sort of interest in
the doings of the duke, though neither
father nor l had ever seen him.
Then suddenly the intended mar
riage was broken off. Alberto came
secretly to otter one night, and he
was found dangerously wounded in
the leg by a gunshot, close to the rec
tory. The keepers brought him in,
and father and 1 nursed him back to
health. But he would never tell me
anything of the reason for his acct
dent, except that some n had at
tackled him and that some one hated
him and would do him all the injury
they could. When he asked me to
marry him he said that he had some
very powerful enemies, who would in
jure him If they could. He asked me
If / would take him, knowing this, and
that there might be danger for both
of us. / laughed at it all, and we
were married, as you know.
During the time we were together,
on two separate occasions, Alberic's
life was attempted. Once 1t was in
Paris. We we're staying at the Ritz.
We had been to the opera, and as it
was a very hot night Alberto thought
he would go for a stroll before bed.
He came back with his left arm tenn
p0raTiiy disabled, and said that on the
outer boulevard a man had come up
to him, looked him carefully in the
face, and then aimed a blow at his
head with a life preserver. The man
hit him on the arm instead. and AZ
beric, who was always a great boxer.
knocked him down in a
While he was calling for a gendarme
the man got up and ran away. We
went to the police, but they made
very little of it, saying that the outer
b~oulevards were always dangerous late
at night, and that constant attacks
were made upon well dressed people
by the ruffians who infested the quar-
ter.
alberto was not in the least bit a
coward. Michael. but he seemed terri
bly, depressed for days afterwards. far
more depressed than any ordinary at
tack of that sort would seem to war
rant.
AT last. from hints which he let
drop and from n or two significant
things got him to say, / learned he
was almost certain that this was no
ordinary casual attack. but part of
the danger which he had told me hung
over him when we were first married:
The second time was even more hor.
rible. II was In this very house. AL
beric's secretary had brought him IN
letters that were marked Person
al or that looked like private letters.
We were At breakfast In the morning.
room. There was a little fiat parcel,
about the size OF a small book. It was
addressed to Alberto and marked 'Pri
vate. He cur the string with d men.
KnAfsl rsmsmoer we were taIkina
about soraeshing-And ne Q n Il
! without looking at what he was doing
inside the parcel vas q iat cardboard
boz. Just Ike those BIG bcxes az wa,