The innkeeper was as shocked as all the rest when he heard how wicked Selim had really been, and very surprised at being told that one of the ladies who had come in the carriage with him was Queen Rosebud.
“She must have been the one they said was ill,” he said. “Her head was all covered up when they brought her in. They asked for a cup of tea for her, so I went down into the kitchen myself, because, you see, the girl what——”
“Never mind about all that,” said the Lord Chancellor. “Where are they now? Take us to them at once.”
But alas! the innkeeper could only tell them that they had gone.
“The King,” he said—“well, I suppose I mustn’t call him that now—but Selim, he went out with the General when the firing began, and soon after he’d gone the ladies must have slipped off. That’s how I think it must have happened. Anyhow, when I went up to tell them about my cucumber frame they’d gone, and I haven’t set eyes on them since.”
They did not waste much more time at the inn. They set out to make a thorough search of the houses in the fort, under the direction of Lieutenant Napoleon, who now showed himself very zealous on the scent.
There were not, after all, a great many hiding places. It was only in the lower streets of the fort that there were shops and houses. Above that there were only barracks and defence works, and the citadel at the top of all.
None of the soldiers whom Lieutenant Napoleon questioned had seen anything of Selim since the taking of the fort. Up to that time he had been with General Wellington-Vera, overlooking the defence, and many of them had seen him. Of the Queen, and the other lady dolls, nobody had seen anything, from first to last.
“The only thing left is to search the citadel,” said Lieutenant Napoleon. “I don’t suppose they are there, but I don’t see where else they can be.”
So they set out, and climbed the steep streets up to the top of the fort.