"By no means. And, sergeant--?"
"Your Majesty?"
"Sir, you mean."
"Yes, sir."
"A zealous officer, sergeant, can make no greater mistake than to take for the king a gentleman who is not the king. It might injure his prospects, since the king, not being here, mightn"t wish to have it supposed that he was here. Do you follow me, sergeant?"
The man said nothing, but stared hard. After a moment Rudolf continued:
"In such a case," said he, "a discreet officer would not trouble the gentleman any more, and would be very careful not to mention that he had made such a silly mistake. Indeed, if questioned, he would answer without hesitation that he hadn"t seen anybody even like the king, much less the king himself."
A doubtful, puzzled little smile spread under the sergeant"s moustache.
"You see, the king is not even in Strelsau," said Rudolf.
"Not in Strelsau, sir?"
"Why, no, he"s at Zenda."
"Ah! At Zenda, sir?"
"Certainly. It is therefore impossible--physically impossible--that he should be here."
The fellow was convinced that he understood now.
"It"s certainly impossible, sir," said he, smiling more broadly.
"Absolutely. And therefore impossible also that you should have seen him." With this Rudolf took a gold piece from his pocket and handed it to the sergeant. The fellow took it with something like a wink.
"As for you, you"ve searched here and found n.o.body," concluded Mr.
Ra.s.sendyll. "So hadn"t you better at once search somewhere else?
"Without doubt, sir," said the sergeant, and with the most deferential salute, and another confidential smile, he turned and rode back by the way he had come. No doubt he wished that he could meet a gentleman who was--not the king--every morning of his life. It hardly need be said that all idea of connecting the gentleman with the crime committed in the Konigstra.s.se had vanished from his mind. Thus Rudolf won freedom from the man"s interference, but at a dangerous cost--how dangerous he did not know. It was indeed most impossible that the king could be in Strelsau.
He lost no time now in turning his steps towards his refuge. It was past five o"clock, day came quickly, and the streets began to be peopled by men and women on their way to open stalls or to buy in the market.
Rudolf crossed the square at a rapid walk, for he was afraid of the soldiers who were gathering for early duty opposite to the barracks.
Fortunately he pa.s.sed by them un.o.bserved, and gained the comparative seclusion of the street in which my house stands, without encountering any further difficulties. In truth, he was almost in safety; but bad luck was now to have its turn. When Mr. Ra.s.sendyll was no more than fifty yards from my door, a carriage suddenly drove up and stopped a few paces in front of him. The footman sprang down and opened the door. Two ladies got out; they were dressed in evening costume, and were returning from a ball. One was middle-aged, the other young and rather pretty.
They stood for a moment on the pavement, the younger saying:
"Isn"t it pleasant, mother? I wish I could always be up at five o"clock."
"My dear, you wouldn"t like it for long," answered the elder. "It"s very nice for a change, but--"
She stopped abruptly. Her eye had fallen on Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll. He knew her: she was no less a person than the wife of Helsing the chancellor; his was the house at which the carriage had stopped. The trick that had served with the sergeant of police would not do now. She knew the king too well to believe that she could be mistaken about him; she was too much of a busybody to be content to pretend that she was mistaken.
"Good gracious!" she whispered loudly, and, catching her daughter"s arm, she murmured, "Heavens, my dear, it"s the king!"
Rudolf was caught. Not only the ladies, but their servants were looking at him.
Flight was impossible. He walked by them. The ladies curtseyed, the servants bowed bare-headed. Rudolf touched his hat and bowed slightly in return. He walked straight on towards my house; they were watching him, and he knew it. Most heartily did he curse the untimely hours to which folks keep up their dancing, but he thought that a visit to my house would afford as plausible an excuse for his presence as any other. So he went on, surveyed by the wondering ladies, and by the servants who, smothering smiles, asked one another what brought his Majesty abroad in such a plight (for Rudolf"s clothes were soaked and his boots muddy), at such an hour--and that in Strelsau, when all the world thought he was at Zenda.
Rudolf reached my house. Knowing that he was watched he had abandoned all intention of giving the signal agreed on between my wife and himself and of making his way in through the window. Such a sight would indeed have given the excellent Baroness von Helsing matter for gossip! It was better to let every servant in my house see his open entrance. But, alas, virtue itself sometimes leads to ruin. My dearest Helga, sleepless and watchful in the interest of her mistress, was even now behind the shutter, listening with all her ears and peering through the c.h.i.n.ks.
No sooner did Rudolf"s footsteps become audible than she cautiously unfastened the shutter, opened the window, put her pretty head out, and called softly: "All"s safe! Come in!"
The mischief was done then, for the faces of Helsing"s wife and daughter, ay, and the faces of Helsing"s servants, were intent on this most strange spectacle. Rudolf, turning his head over his shoulder, saw them; a moment later poor Helga saw them also. Innocent and untrained in controlling her feelings, she gave a shrill little cry of dismay, and hastily drew back. Rudolf looked round again. The ladies had retreated to the cover of the porch, but he still saw their eager faces peering from between the pillars that supported it.
"I may as well go in now," said Rudolf, and in he sprang. There was a merry smile on his face as he ran forward to meet Helga, who leant against the table, pale and agitated.
"They saw you?" she gasped.
"Undoubtedly," said he. Then his sense of amus.e.m.e.nt conquered everything else, and he sat down in a chair, laughing.
"I"d give my life," said he, "to hear the story that the chancellor will be waked up to hear in a minute or two from now!"
But a moment"s thought made him grave again. For whether he were the king or Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll, he knew that my wife"s name was in equal peril. Knowing this, he stood at nothing to serve her. He turned to her and spoke quickly.
"You must rouse one of the servants at once. Send him round to the chancellor"s and tell the chancellor to come here directly. No, write a note. Say the king has come by appointment to see Fritz on some private business, but that Fritz has not kept the appointment, and that the king must now see the chancellor at once. Say there"s not a moment to lose."
She was looking at him with wondering eyes.
"Don"t you see," he said, "if I can impose on Helsing, I may stop those women"s tongues? If nothing"s done, how long do you suppose it"ll be before all Strelsau knows that Fritz von Tarlenheim"s wife let the king in at the window at five o"clock in the morning?"
"I don"t understand," murmured poor Helga in bewilderment.
"No, my dear lady, but for Heaven"s sake do what I ask of you. It"s the only chance now."
"I"ll do it," she said, and sat down to write.
Thus it was that, hard on the marvelous tidings which, as I conjecture, the Baroness von Helsing poured into her husband"s drowsy ears, came an imperative summons that the chancellor should wait on the king at the house of Fritz von Tarlenheim.
Truly we had tempted fate too far by bringing Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll again to Strelsau.
CHAPTER XII. BEFORE THEM ALL!
GREAT as was the risk and immense as were the difficulties created by the course which Mr. Ra.s.sendyll adopted, I cannot doubt that he acted for the best in the light of the information which he possessed. His plan was to disclose himself in the character of the king to Helsing, to bind him to secrecy, and make him impose the same obligation on his wife, daughter, and servants. The chancellor was to be quieted with the excuse of urgent business, and conciliated by a promise that he should know its nature in the course of a few hours; meanwhile an appeal to his loyalty must suffice to insure obedience. If all went well in the day that had now dawned, by the evening of it the letter would be destroyed, the queen"s peril past, and Rudolf once more far away from Strelsau.
Then enough of the truth--no more--must be disclosed. Helsing would be told the story of Rudolf Ra.s.sendyll and persuaded to hold his tongue about the harum-scarum Englishman (we are ready to believe much of an Englishman) having been audacious enough again to play the king in Strelsau. The old chancellor was a very good fellow, and I do not think that Rudolf did wrong in relying upon him. Where he miscalculated was, of course, just where he was ignorant. The whole of what the queen"s friends, ay, and the queen herself, did in Strelsau, became useless and mischievous by reason of the king"s death; their action must have been utterly different, had they been aware of that catastrophe; but their wisdom must be judged only according to their knowledge.
In the first place, the chancellor himself showed much good sense. Even before he obeyed the king"s summons he sent for the two servants and charged them, on pain of instant dismissal and worse things to follow, to say nothing of what they had seen. His commands to his wife and daughter were more polite, doubtless, but no less peremptory. He may well have supposed that the king"s business was private as well as important when it led his Majesty to be roaming the streets of Strelsau at a moment when he was supposed to be at the Castle of Zenda, and to enter a friend"s house by the window at such untimely hours. The mere facts were eloquent of secrecy. Moreover, the king had shaved his beard--the ladies were sure of it--and this, again, though it might be merely an accidental coincidence, was also capable of signifying a very urgent desire to be unknown. So the chancellor, having given his orders, and being himself aflame with the liveliest curiosity, lost no time in obeying the king"s commands, and arrived at my house before six o"clock.
When the visitor was announced Rudolf was upstairs, having a bath and some breakfast. Helga had learnt her lesson well enough to entertain the visitor until Rudolf appeared. She was full of apologies for my absence, protesting that she could in no way explain it; neither could she so much as conjecture what was the king"s business with her husband. She played the dutiful wife whose virtue was obedience, whose greatest sin would be an indiscreet prying into what it was not her part to know.
"I know no more," she said, "than that Fritz wrote to me to expect the king and him at about five o"clock, and to be ready to let them in by the window, as the king did not wish the servants to be aware of his presence."
The king came and greeted Helsing most graciously. The tragedy and comedy of these busy days were strangely mingled; even now I can hardly help smiling when I picture Rudolf, with grave lips, but that distant twinkle in his eye (I swear he enjoyed the sport), sitting down by the old chancellor in the darkest corner of the room, covering him with flattery, hinting at most strange things, deploring a secret obstacle to immediate confidence, promising that to-morrow, at latest, he would seek the advice of the wisest and most tried of his counselors, appealing to the chancellor"s loyalty to trust him till then. Helsing, blinking through his spectacles, followed with devout attention the long narrative that told nothing, and the urgent exhortation that masked a trick. His accents were almost broken with emotion as he put himself absolutely at the king"s disposal, and declared that he could answer for the discretion of his family and household as completely as for his own.