"So that we may get the body buried without delay?" Maxgregor asked.
"Well, I should say not," the cautious Varney said. "I am perhaps stretching a medical point and I do not want to get myself into further trouble. For political reasons we do not want the public to know that the King of Asturia is dead. I am prepared to swear as to what killed him. But kings are not buried like ordinary bodies, they are generally embalmed. In the course of a few days the sad news may be made public and then the body can be taken to Asturia and buried in state. The embalmers need not know of the high rank of their subject."
Varney was absolutely right, as Lechmere saw at once. Besides, if his calculations were correct, the sad news would be made public very soon now. People would ask questions but they need not be answered. There was nothing for it now but to break the news to the queen.
"I think I'll get you to do that," Lechmere said to Maxgregor. "You are such an old friend and you can speak to the queen in tones that I should not venture to address to her. But it will be all right so far as Asturia is concerned—Russia is going to fail there. And you and I and one or two others will go down to the grave holding one of the most romantic and wildest political secrets that has ever taken place in Europe. Good luck to you, my friend."
Maxgregor went off at once to the queen's hotel. He found her, to his surprise, not in the least gloomy or anxious; on the contrary there was a fine smile on her face.
"I have been longing for you," she said. "If you had not come to me, positively I must have invaded your rooms. Have you heard the good news—I mean the good news of the king?"
Maxgregor looked with some alarm at the royal speaker. Thoughts of a brain unhinged by trouble rose before him. Evidently the queen had taken leave of her senses.
"The good news," he stammered. "Margaret, there is no good news. Somebody has been cruelly deceiving you. You must be prepared to hear that which is bad, very bad."
"But the king escaped," the queen cried. "He escaped from the wrecked train and made his way secretly and swiftly to our capital. It was perhaps the one unselfish and manly action of his life. He was bruised and battered but he was sufficiently himself to meet his ministers. Tomani has cabled me."