"Perhaps this is an occasion when it is a woman's privilege to remain silent," he said bitterly. "So I begin with you, Julius. Save myself, you are the youngest here, and it would be fitting that you and I should determine this business. I warn you there will be no half measures! My life, at least, goes into the scale, and I care not who else adjusts the balance."
The pink and white tints had long fled from the Parisian dandy's complexion. In the dim light he looked livid, and his forehead bore bright beads of perspiration. But even Alec's fiery eyes discerned that he was not only afraid, but bewildered, and his voice cracked with excitement when he spoke.
"I declare by everything I hold sacred that I had no hand in this affair!" he said shrilly. "It is natural perhaps that you should suspect me, since I seem to have most to gain by any ill that befalls you; but, even in your anger, Alec, you should be just. No matter how fierce your emotions, you ought to realize that Miss Vernon's departure from Delgratz retards rather than helps any possible scheming on my part to succeed you on the throne."
"Now you, Beliani!" said Alec, striving to penetrate the mask that covered the one impassive face in the room. "It was you who contrived that my promised wife should come here from Paris. I can see your purpose now. At to-day's meeting of the Cabinet, while I was urging your advancement to power and dignity in the State, your hand was revealed in the opposition manifested to my marriage. Your cunning brain conceived the notion that I would not abandon the woman I loved for the sake of fifty Kingdoms. You read my mind aright; but, if it was you who brought about her flight, for what devilish reason did you depart from the subtle plot that might well have achieved your ends by means which you, at least, would consider fair?"
The Greek spread wide his hands in that characteristic gesture of his. As it happened, for once in his life he could afford to be sincere. "I can only assure your Majesty in the plainest possible terms," he said, "that until I heard the news from your own lips, I had no knowledge whatsoever of Miss Vernon's journey. Were I asked outside that locked door to state to the best of my belief where she might be found, I should have said that the slight illness of which she complained this morning had probably confined her to her room."
For an instant Alec scowled at the President; but Sergius Nesimir's vacuous features so obviously revealed his condition of speechless surprise and distress that there remained only Stampoff, Prince Michael—and his mother.
Adhering rigidly to his scheme of narrowing the field of inquiry by putting the same straight question to each individual in turn, Alec next appealed to the man who had helped him to gain a throne.
"Paul," he said, "you who were my friend and have become my enemy, you, at least, will speak the truth. Tell me, then, who has done this thing!"
Stampoff strode forward. He feared no one, this determined advocate of his country's cause, and he alone knew the real menace of the impending tornado. "Your mother ought not to be here, Alec," he muttered. "A little more of this and she will faint. Look at her! Have you no pity in your heart? This is no place for a woman. Unlock the door and let her be taken away!"
Alec moistened his dry lips with his tongue. He felt that he was finally touching sure ground in the morass through which he was floundering. "She and all of you must remain!" was his grim reply. "Answer my question! Was it you who drove Joan from Delgratz?"