"I haven't the remotest idea where your friend Bevis is or where he has got to," Mazaroff said with a sneer in his voice. "Bevis is a young man who has lately outrun the constable. He inferred to me that he was going to retire to the country for a time. He offered me this little place on my own terms and I am to give it back to our friend if I get tired of it. It is a more swagger pied à terre than my own and I jumped at the chance. Now you know everything."
Lechmere nodded as if perfectly satisfied, though he did not know everything by any means. He sat down and helped himself to a cigarette to Mazaroff's annoyance. But Lechmere appeared not to see it. He had his own game to play and he was not to be deterred.
"I want to have a little chat with you," he said. "We shall never get a better chance than this. I want if possible to enlist your sympathies on the side of the Queen of Asturia. If I could gain your assistance and that of Madame Saens I should be more than satisfied."
Mazaroff muttered something to the effect that he should be delighted. But his aspect was uneasy and guilty. He could not shake off his air of fear. From time to time he cocked his ears as if listening for something in the inner room. Lechmere sat there grimly smoking and looking at the ceiling. He was not quite sure what card he should play next.
"I am thinking of going to Asturia myself," he said. "I'm not quite old enough to get rusty yet. And there is a fine field for intrigue and adventure yonder. I understand that the king returns to-morrow. It will be in all the papers in the morning."
"The deuce it will!" Mazaroff exclaimed blankly. "Why that will upset all our plans——I mean, that it will be a checkmate to Russia. Considering all that we have done ... is that a fact, Lechmere?"
"My dear chap, surely I have no object in telling you what is false!" Lechmere said. "Of course it is a fact. The king ought never to have come away, he would not have come away if the queen could have trusted him. She thought that she could do her country good by visiting London. But the king will be looked after much better in future, I promise you. Have you seen Peretori lately?"
The latter question was shot dexterously at Mazaroff like a snap from a gun. The latter glanced swiftly at Lechmere, but he could make nothing of the other's inscrutable face. The Russian began to feel as if he had blundered into a trap; he had the same fear as a lying witness in the box under the horror of a rasping cross-examination from a sharp barrister.
"I don't know that I am acquainted with the man you mention?" he faltered.
"Oh, nonsense. Take your memory back, man. Not know Peretori! Think of that night five years ago in Paris when you and I and Scandel and the rest were supping with those Oderon people. And you say that the name of Peretori is not known to you!"