"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 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!"