Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/317

 documents, which conveyed the Transylvanian property to the English company.

This final stage of the business was accomplished at the Austrian Embassy, under the auspices of that clever secretary, Lieutenant Grunwald, a nephew of Count Hammerstein, the Ambassador. Disgruntled Peter refused to join the company in any capacity, and so Stranleigh's wish that he should manage the mining fell through. He then determined to wait for a month until his efficient young man from Brazil, for whom he cabled, could get across, and this delay turned out, in the circumstances, to be a blessing in disguise.

One morning Stranleigh opened his newspaper and read with dismay the following item:—

" DEATH OF THE BARONESS VON ARRENFELS."

"We deeply regret to state that last night, at Brighton, there died Baroness von Arrenfels, only daughter of the late Baron von Arrenfels, of Vienna and Tyrol. About six months ago she was ordered by her physicians to Brighton, in the hope that the bracing air of that resort might cure an anæmic disorder that had kept her bedridden for more than a year. To the regret of her many friends, this hope has proved fallacious. The Baroness,