United States

The United States is both a financial arena in the Herzoslovakian succession struggle and the setting of King Victor’s most consequential impersonation. While Prince Michael’s restoration is supported by British interests, Prince Nicholas is reported to be in the United States raising money against his expectations; King Victor later takes advantage of the prince’s presumed death to pose as him and secure a large sum from American financiers. The revelation that the supposed claimant was an impostor turns the American episode into a crucial link between political intrigue, detective work, and Anthony Cade’s concealed identity.

A Rival Center of Financial Support

After Prince Michael’s murder, the question of who might succeed him becomes urgent. Superintendent Battle identifies Prince Nicholas Obolovitch as Michael’s first cousin and next heir, and says there is reason to believe Nicholas has been in the United States, raising money on his expectations. Anthony interprets this as a transatlantic contest: Michael had British backing, while Nicholas had American backing, with financiers in each country seeking access to Herzoslovakia’s oil concessions.

That contrast has an earlier political counterpart. Before Michael’s candidacy is disrupted by the memoirs and then his death, George Lomax explains that Herzoslovakian supporters want to restore the monarchy and are prepared to offer the crown to Michael, who has the support and encouragement of the British government. In return, Michael is prepared to grant concessions to Isaacstein and Company for a loan of roughly a million. The American money associated with Nicholas thus belongs to the same larger contest: royal succession is bound up with foreign finance and the anticipated value of oil rights.

King Victor’s Impersonation

The apparent American claimant is not Prince Nicholas. A French investigator reports that King Victor escaped his pursuers and went to the United States rather than returning directly to England. There, Victor assumed the name and role of Prince Nicholas of Herzoslovakia. Because Nicholas had been rumoured to have died in the Congo years earlier, Victor could exploit the difficulty of establishing that death and present himself as a living heir.

In that guise, Victor obtained a substantial amount of American money on the strength of the supposed oil concessions. The scheme ended when an accident exposed him, forcing him to leave the country hurriedly. The revelation shocks Anthony and Battle because the American story had seemed to concern the movements and fundraising of the genuine prince. Instead, it shows how Victor turned a succession claim—and the uncertainty surrounding Nicholas’s fate—into an instrument of fraud.

The Imposture as a Clue

The American deception also provides a test of identity. When the French investigator identifies Anthony as King Victor, he invokes the American fraud and Victor’s impersonation of Nicholas as evidence that could be used against him. Anthony answers that he was nowhere near the United States at the time and could readily prove it. If Victor impersonated Nicholas there, Anthony argues, then Anthony cannot be Victor. Battle confirms the essential point: the man in America was an impostor, not the real prince.

This exchange makes geography serve as evidence. The United States is not merely a distant setting named in accounts of financing; it is the place where the false identity was enacted, and therefore where the real Anthony’s absence can distinguish him from Victor. The same episode that initially obscures Nicholas’s whereabouts ultimately helps disentangle the two men’s identities.

The Genuine Heir and the Political Aftermath

At the end of the succession negotiations, Anthony discloses that the story of Nicholas’s death in the Congo was deliberately spread. He says that he killed Nicholas in the sense of making the world believe him dead, not by murdering him. He then identifies himself by his full royal name, Nicholas Sergius Alexander Ferdinand Obolovitch, explaining that he emerged from the Congo as Anthony Cade because that identity suited the life he intended to lead.

The revelation reverses the meaning of the American episode. King Victor had impersonated a prince believed dead in order to raise money in the United States; the actual prince had indeed been living under another name, but was Anthony Cade, not Victor’s American persona. With Prince Michael dead, Anthony offers himself as the cousin and heir for whom the loan might be made. The United States therefore marks both a failed financial counterfeit and a political absence: its supposed Prince Nicholas was a fraud, while the genuine claimant’s identity and whereabouts remained concealed until the final disclosure.