the question was asked a great deal easier than it could be answered. only lechmere smiled.
"i fancy i could give a pretty shrewd guess," he said. "the countess has been inspired by a discovery that she has made to-night, and a double of the king might prove very useful under certain circumstances. and in spite of what this young lady says as to the way she baffled the hired spy in the lane, i fancy the countess has an inkling of the truth. we have pretty well established the fact that the king started out this afternoon with certain papers in his pocket."
"probably an abdication of his throne in the interests of russia," maxwell said.
"precisely. he was hesitating as to whether he should sign or not. he goes to some gambling hell and gets exceedingly intoxicated there. the idea was probably to force a signature out of him as soon as he was in a fit state to hold a pen. then a vast amount of money would have changed hands. the king would have been invited to drink again, and perhaps have recovered without having the least idea where he was for the next few days. in a word, he would have disappeared. in four and twenty hours all europe would have heard of the abdication. now, where are those papers now? the king certainly had them in his possession when he was rescued from the gambling hell."
"i wish you had looked," maxwell said. "if i had known this earlier!"
"unfortunately, nobody knew of it," lechmere proceeded. "only our enemies. and when maxgregor went off from here in the king's dress clothes, he took the papers in the pockets. if madame saens has an idea of what has happened, she knows this. hence her note to mazaroff. as a matter of fact, our friend the general is in considerable peril."
"in which case somebody ought to go to him at once," jessie exclaimed.
lechmere announced his intention of doing so without delay, but maxwell objected. it would be far better for lechmere to stay here and keep an eye on mazaroff. and maxwell was supposed to be out of the way, nobody would give him a second thought; therefore he was the best man for the purpose. varney was warmly in favour of this suggestion, and lechmere had no further objection to offer.
"let it go at that," he said. "and the sooner you are off the better. there is one great point in our favour, these people can do nothing very harmful so long as those papers are missing. i mean the foreign office papers stolen from countess saens's bedroom. if we could get them back——"
"they must be got back," varney said. "the best i can do is to go down to scotland yard and report the loss without being too free over the contents of the documents. once those are back in our hands, our people can afford to be blandly ignorant of what the mercury said to-night."
"and i should be free to hold up my head again." maxwell murmured. "but i am wasting time here."
maxwell disappeared into the darkness and made[170] his way by the back lane into piccadilly. the streets were quiet now, and very few people about. it was no far cry to the chambers occupied by general maxgregor, and no time would be lost by going to the house of countess saens. maxwell paused before it a moment. the dining-room blinds were still up, and the lights gleaming inside. but so far as maxwell could see the room was empty. he lingered as long as he dared in the hope of something happening. he was just turning away when the front door opened and a man came out. in the passing flash of the street lamp maxwell recognized the man who he had mistaken for the king of asturia. the likeness became no less strong under maxwell's close scrutiny.
the man stopped on the doorstep and lit a cigarette, and then he pulled his hat over his eyes and turned up his coat collar, warm as the night was. a hansom crawled along with the driver half asleep on his perch. in a strong german accent the man on the pavement called to the driver.
"fleet street!" he said. "no 191b, fleet street! office of the evening mercury, you know. wake up!"
maxwell felt half inclined to follow. but he thought of the possible danger to maxgregor, and he was forced unwillingly to abandon his intention. acting on the impulse of the moment, he ran up the steps of the house and tried the door. to his surprise the lock turned in his hand. at the same moment the blinds in the dining-room were pulled down by the countess herself, and the lights switched off. maxwell stood with the door just opened; he saw the figure of the countess herself mounting up the stairs. he could hear distinctly the[171] swish of her skirts. then there was another click, and the hall lights vanished. countess saens was going to bed, having forgotten to lock the front door! that all the servants had gone to bed maxwell felt certain, for the area quarters were all in black darkness.
"astonishing how careless these clever women are sometimes!" maxwell muttered as he took his way down the road. "i suppose the servants generally see to that, and her ladyship has entirely forgotten a thing that never comes within the scope of her duties."
maxgregor's place was reached at length, and maxwell was glad to see the lights burning. a sleepy porter had not the slightest idea whether the general was in or out. he was just going to bed himself; he never sat up after midnight, and if the gentlemen were out after this without their keys it was their own fault. maxwell cut short this tirade by going upstairs. he walked straight into maxgregor's sitting-room. it was a dark room on the first floor with folding doors. on the other side of the folding doors the general was stretched out on the bed. he looked somewhat haughtily at the intruder.
"this is an unexpected honour," he said. "i have met you once or twice, mr. maxwell, but that does not give you the right to come into my bedroom in this fashion. in the light of recent events——"
"for heaven's sake don't take that tone!" maxwell cried passionately. "it is impossible not to understand what you are alluding to. and it is quite futile just now to protest my innocence. that i am innocent; that sooner or later you will have to apologize for your suspicions is inevitable. meanwhile,[172] i am here at the request of mr. lechmere and dr. varney to warn you of your danger. cleverly as your escape was managed, it has been found out. let me tell you what has happened?"
the general bowed coldly. he looked on the speaker as the cause of all the trouble. he was not going to accept a mere protestation of innocence in this way. and yet there was a ring of sincerity in what maxwell said. he was here, also, of his own free will, and his news was serious.
"so that accursed woman has hit the right nail again," he growled. "that letter you speak of means mischief to me. i wonder if the countess knows that i am wounded? i dare say she does. i might have been murdered in my bed if you had not come."
"you would have been murdered," maxwell retorted. "that is absolutely certain. are you very ill?"
"no; it was merely a flesh wound in the shoulder. the bullet has been extracted. i lost blood, and i am feeling rather weak at present, but in a day or two i shall be quite myself again."
"how did you manage to keep the thing so quiet?"
"i sent for a doctor friend of mine. he was with me in the first asturian campaign—a fellow who has a fortune, and loves doctoring as a pastime. he knows a lot about the balkan business. i asked him to keep this matter a secret, and he has done so. is there anything else i can tell you?"
"it seems to me that there is a good deal that you can tell me," maxwell replied. "when you walked off with the king's clothes you probably went away with papers that may be used with great effect[173] against russia if they fall into proper hands—our hands, that is. if you don't mind, i shall be glad to turn out the pockets of that coat."
"that is an excellent idea," maxgregor said. "what did i do?—oh, i know. the porter took the whole suit down to be brushed; as i don't keep a man he acts as my valet. if you would not mind going down into the hall and asking the fellow?"
maxwell vanished at once. but the hall porter had departed for the night, so the occupant of another set of chambers said as he opened the outer door with his latchkey. at the same moment a figure bolted past the door, a figure with coat collar turned up and hat pulled down. it was the double of the king of asturia. maxgregor's face grew stern as he heard.
"let us anticipate events," he said. "put out the lights in my sitting-room and close the door. when you have done that put out the light here also. there is a way into the corridor out of this room without going through the sitting-room. place the key of the sitting-room door on the outside."
maxwell crept back presently, having accomplished his task. for half an hour or more the two sat in the pitch darkness saying not a word to each other. it seemed a long time, but the watchers knew that something was going to happen and stifled their impatience. presently maxwell felt that a hand was clutching him by the arm. maxgregor was whispering something in his ear.
and under the folding doors a long slit of light filtered into the bedroom. somebody had turned up the light in the sitting-room!
