‘This way?’ he exclaimed, his mind unable to keep pace with hers.
‘Yes. You are Constantine. You are in the plot, remember. You must let them in to kill your master, who is asleep.’
I shuddered. My suspicion—for it was hardly more—was going to be fatal to the valet.
‘Go with him,’ Queen Draga added, turning to me. ‘I am safe. I need neither protection nor guidance. He needs both. I adjure you, Andrea!’
Swept away by the torrent of her impetuosity, I followed Alexander to the dressing-room.
Draga herself came to the door, and closed it softly after us.
We were just in time to meet a party of a dozen soldiers, headed by Colonel Masileff himself.
Stepping past the young King, who was shaking like a leaf, I whispered in Masileff’s ear—
‘Be quiet, or you will awake him. He is lying on the bed, drunk.’
The soldiers filed in past us, not one casting so much as a glance at our faces, shrouded by the darkness.