lechmere darted along in the direction of the secondary staircase from whence the noise of the falling body had come. it was somewhat dark there, for the gas jet at that point had been turned down and there were no electrics there. at the foot of the stairs could be seen the outline of somebody who had become entangled with a maze of salmon line and who was held up like a great blundering bee in a spider's web. lechmere could hear him muttering and swearing to himself as he struggled to be free.
but there was no time to waste. doubtless mazaroff would be out of his room in a little time, and it was just possible that he might come that way. lechmere slid down the bannisters as a schoolboy might have done; he had an open pocket knife in his teeth. noiselessly he came down upon the struggling man and gripped him by the shoulders.
"don't you make a sound," he hissed. "not one word unless you want this knife plunged into your body. be still, and no harm shall come to you."
the other man said nothing. he allowed himself to be cut free from the salmon line and dragged behind a kind of housemaid's closet at the foot of the stairs. at the same moment mazaroff came along. the two men there could see the dark outline of his anxious face as he lighted a vesta to aid him in seeing what was going on.
[223]
"got away, i expect," he muttered. "a precious near thing, anyway. but if he is clear off the premises i may as well go this way myself."
so close did mazaroff pass the other two that lechmere could easily have touched him. his companion gave no sign, perhaps lechmere's fingers playing about his throat warned him of the danger of anything of the kind. mazaroff disappeared in the gloom, a door closed with a click, there was a muffled echo of retreating footsteps and then lechmere's grim features relaxed into a smile. he jogged up his captive.
"now we shall be able to get along," he said. "will you be so good as to precede me, sir?"
"do you know who i am?" the other man replied. "because if you are not aware of my identity——"
"i am quite aware of your identity," lechmere said coolly. "and i should do again what i am doing now if necessary. i daresay you regard the thing as a magnificent joke, but when you come to realise the enormous mischief that you have done, why——"
lechmere shrugged his shoulders by way of completing his sentence. he pushed the other man along the corridor until he came to maxgregor's rooms, where he hustled his prisoner inside. he stood winking and blinking there in the light, the very image of the king with his orders on his breast and his flame-coloured hair gleaming in the light. shamefaced as he appeared, there was yet a kind of twinkle in his eyes.
"behold your king," lechmere said. "behold the source of the trouble. your majesty must find the heat very much in that wig. let me remove it."
[224]
he coolly twitched the flame-coloured thatch away and disclosed a close crop of black hair. the queen threw up her hands with a gesture of amazement.
"peretori," she cried. "prince peretori! so you are the cause of all the mischief. will you be so good as to explain yourself?"
"there is no very great resemblance to the king, now that the wig is removed," jessie whispered to maxwell who stood beside her. "do you know i rather like his face. who is he?"
"prince peretori of nassa, a second cousin of the king of asturia," maxwell explained. "there are many mad princes in europe but none quite so mad as peretori. he is not bad or wicked, he is simply utterly irresponsible. the great object in his life is the playing of practical jokes. also he is a wonderfully fine actor—he would have made a great name on the stage. it is one of his boasts that he can make up to resemble anybody."
"he doesn't look like an enemy," jessie said in the same low voice.
"he's not," maxwell replied. "in fact peretori is nobody's enemy but his own. i should not be in the least surprised to find that he had been made use of in this business."
"why have you committed this crowning act of folly?" the queen asked coldly.
"is it any worse than usual?" the prince asked. "my dear cousin, i did it for a wager. the price of my success was to be a thousand guineas. now a thousand guineas to me at the present moment represents something like salvation. i am terribly hard up, i am painfully in debt. in this country those commercial brutal laws take no heed of[225] station. i ignored certain civil processes with the result that a common tradesman can throw me into gaol at any moment for a debt that i simply cannot pay. that i am always ready for a joke you are aware. but a remunerative joke like this was not to be denied."
"therefore you believe that you have won the bet from countess saens and prince mazaroff?" lechmere asked. "do they admit that you have won?"
"they do, my somewhat heavy-handed friend," the prince cried gaily. "though how on earth you came to know that the countess and mazaroff had any hand in the business——"
"we will come to that presently," lechmere resumed. "you talked that matter over with the countess and mazaroff and they gradually persuaded you to try this thing. you were to go to the editor of the mercury and pass yourself off as the king of asturia. you were to tell him all kinds of damaging things, and he was to believe you. if he believed you to be the king, you earned your money."
"never was a sum of money gained more easily," peretori cried.
"yes, but at what a cost!" the queen said sternly. "peretori, do you ever consider anything else but your own selfish amusements? look at the harm you have done. once the printed lie crosses the border into asturia, what is to become of us all! did you think of that? can't you understand that all europe will imagine that the king has resigned his throne? desperate as things are, you have made then ten times worse."
peretori looked blankly at the speaker. he was like a boy who had been detected in some offence[226] and for the first time realized the seriousness of it.
"i give you my word that i never thought of that for a moment," he said. "it is one of my sins that i never think of anything where a jest is concerned. that smug little editor swallowed everything that i said in the most amusing fashion. i had won my money and i was free. my dear cousin, if there is anything that i can do——"
the queen shook her head mournfully. she was quite at a loss for the moment. unless, perhaps, the tables could be turned in another way.
"you have been the dupe of two of our most unscrupulous enemies," the queen went on. "they are agents of russia, and at the present moment their great task is to try and bring about the abdication of the king of asturia. once this is done, the path is fairly clear. to bring this about these people can use as much money as they please. they have been baffled once or twice lately, but when they found you they saw a good chance of doing our house a deadly harm. a thousand pounds, or fifty times that amount mattered little. how did they find you?"
"i have been in england six months," peretori said. "i dropped my rank. there was an english girl i was very fond of. i was prepared to sacrifice everything so long as she became my wife. it doesn't matter how those people found me. the mischief is done."
"the mischief is almost beyond repair," lechmere said. "but why did you come here? why did you sit before the open windows in the next suite of rooms?"
"that was part of the plan, my dear sir," peretori exclaimed. "probably there was somebody watching[227] who had to be convinced that i was the king of asturia. i flatter myself that my make-up was so perfect that nobody could possibly——"
"still harping on that string," the queen said reproachfully. "why don't you try and realize that the great harm that you have done has to be repaired at any cost? with all your faults, you were never a traitor to your country. are you going to take the blood-money, knowing what it means? i cannot believe that you have stooped so low as that."
the face of peretori fell; a shamed look came into his eyes.
"i shall take it," he said. "i shall spoil the egyptians. but at the same time, i can see a way to retrieve the mischief that i have done. it is not too late yet."
