"I had forgotten," Maxwell admitted. "Miss—er—Harcourt told me that the King of Asturia was here. She went on to say that he was not only here, but in such a condition that he would have to stay all night and be conveyed home in a cab. Why was he shamming?"
"Shamming!" Varney cried. "I'll stake my professional reputation that the king was not shamming. He has had some near shaves during the time he has been under my care, but never has he been nearer to death's door than he was to-night. I sincerely believe that it was only the administration of a very powerful drug that saved him."
"I know, I know," Jessie cried. "I saw a good deal of it myself. When I left him the king was unconscious. And yet not half an hour ago I saw him in the Countess Saens's dining-room."
Varney and Lechmere smiled incredibly. They both shook their heads.
"Impossible!" the former said. "Quite impossible, my dear young lady. For the last hour, or nearly an hour, the King of Asturia has been in this house clothed and in his right mind. It was I who brought him downstairs. It was I who produced his majesty to the utter confusion of Mazaroff and Gleikstein, the Russian chargé d'affaires. You must have been utterly mistaken."
"It was no mistake," Maxwell put in. "I have seen the king often enough here and elsewhere. I am prepared to swear in any court of justice that within the last half hour I have seen the King of Asturia in close companionship with Countess Saens in her own house."
Varney and Lechmere looked a little bewildered. There still appeared to be cards in the game of which they knew nothing. Varney was about to speak when Lechmere touched his arm and indicated two figures that had just entered the study.
"To prove that you two are mistaken," he said, "look there. If you know the King of Asturia so well, perhaps you will tell me who that is?"
"The king," Maxwell cried. "And the queen. And yet I am ready to swear.... You don't think that he might have slipped out and——"
"No, I don't," Lechmere said curtly. "As a matter of fact, his majesty is being too carefully watched for that. He has been here all the time, I assure you."