LINK WITH CANUTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20976, 12 September 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

LINK WITH CANUTE.

FORTUNE OF A PRINCE.

PAPERS STOLEN IN LONDON.

" HIDDEN HAND AT WORK."

Millions might have been loft by a man who lived and died in a trim little villa, in a tree-lined road close to Chiswick Green if .... says tho Daily

Express. The man was known as His Royal Highness Prince von Dernbinski, and as such he was buried in tho family vault at Edgbaston, where his father, who shortened his name to " Dembski," was laid to rest. His will was published lately. His estate was worth £l2 3s 3d! On tbo following afternoon, in the pleasant little drawing room of tho widow's villa, one heard the strange story of how he died a poor man. It was the princess herself who spoke—a woman of singular charm, dressed entirely in black, with a necklet of amethysts encircling her well-shaped neck. Her two daughters, who also use the title of princess, were in the room. There was a notico board in the front garden. It bore the words, " Flat to let." Prince von Dernbinski died of •persecution and worry. "He was thrown out of a train at Earl's Court Station in 1915," the princess said. " His wallet and some papers were stolen from him. Later in the war a man who posed as the

prince turned up in Alexandrinastrasse Prison, Berlin. The police would not believe the real prince. It was the hidden hand at work.

The princess paused, and the caller asked her to explain the " hidden hand." " Why, the secret service—the Haute Politique, the sinister force which rules above the law!"

" Is it confined to England ?" The princess laughed. " Dear me, no—it is everywhere, all over the world. Yon never know where it is or what form it will assume. But there it is!"

The prince's father was known as " Prince Iron Face." He settled in England long before the war broke out, took out naturalisation papers, and at Edgbaston ho was one of the local notabilities. The dead prince was addressed as " count " at the age of twelve, and on the death of his father he assumed his full title, and as His Royal Highness Prince von Dembinski he was proud to be known until his death.

The princess stated that the estates which rightly belonged to her husband were in the Polish Corridor—eleven vast estates where oil is found and through which railways run. And tho worth of these great estates?

The princess shrugged her shoulders in dismay. " Really I do not know. Even the prince himself could not assess their value. All ho ever said was that the value was incalculable."

One of tho young princesses was a little more helpful. She said, " Millions," and at ' millions " the estates in tho Polish Corridor wero assessed.

Ihe prince once said he spent thirteen years tracing his ancestry in the archives of the British Museum. But he satisfied himself that he was of the royal house of Lothringen-Rawicz, and a descendant of tho Kings ot tho Franks.

Another little discovery tho prince made, though it did not help him in his long fight for his estates, was that in the early part of the eleventh century a Duke of Lothringen, which was the titlo the family had in those far-off days, married King Canute's daughter.

The princess said that there might bo a war before the eleven estates to which her husband was entitled wore won back. But not even tho eleven estates in the Polish Corridor, rich as they are, would tempt the pleasant widow of Prince von Dembinski away from England.