“Senor Bleke,” resumed the speaker, frowning at one of his companions whose hand was hovering above the bottle of liqueur brandy, “you are a man of sense. You know what is safe and what is not safe. Believe me, this scheme of yours is not safe. You have been led away, but there is still time to withdraw. Do so, and all is well. Do not so, and your blood be upon your own head.”
“My blood!” gasped Roland.
The speaker bowed.
“That is all,” he said. “We merely came to give the warning. Ah, Senor Bleke, do not be rash. You think that here, in this great London of yours, you are safe. You look at the policeman upon the corner of the road, and you say to yourself ‘I am safe.’ Believe me, not at all so is it, but much the opposite. We have ways by which it is of no account the policeman on the corner of the road. That is all, Senor Bleke. We wish you a good night.”
The deputation withdrew.
Maraquita, informed of the incident, snapped her fingers, and said “Poof!” It sometimes struck Roland that she would be more real help in a difficult situation if she could get out of the habit of saying “Poof!”
“It is nothing,” she said.
“No?” said Roland.
“We easily out-trick them, isn’t it? You make a will leaving your money to the Cause, and then where are they, hein?”
It was one way of looking at it, but it brought little balm to Roland. He said so. Maraquita scanned his face keenly.
“You are not weakening, Rolan?” she said. “You would not betray us now?”
“Well, of course, I don’t know about betraying, you know, but still–-. What I mean is–-“
Maraquita’s eyes seemed to shoot forth two flames.
“Take care,” she cried. “With me it is nothing, for I know that your heart is with Paranoya. But, if the others once had cause to suspect that your resolve was failing—ah! If Bombito–-“
Roland took her point. He had forgotten Bombito for the moment.
“For goodness’ sake,” he said hastily, “don’t go saying anything to Bombito to give him the idea that I’m trying to back out. Of course you can rely on me, and all that. That’s all right.”
Maraquita’s gaze softened. She raised her glass—they were lunching at the time—and put it to her lips.
“To the Savior of Paranoya!” she said.
“Beware!” whispered a voice in Roland’s ear.
He turned with a start. A waiter was standing behind him, a small, dark, hairy man. He was looking into the middle distance with the abstracted air which waiters cultivate.
Roland stared at him, but he did not move.
That evening, returning to his flat, Roland was paralyzed by the sight of the word “Beware” scrawled across the mirror in his bedroom. It had apparently been done with a diamond. He rang the bell.
“Sir?” said the competent valet. (“Competent valets are in attendance at each of these flats.”—_Advt._)
“Has any one been here since I left?”
“Yes, sir. A foreign-looking gentleman called. He said he knew you, sir. I showed him into your room.”
The same night, well on in the small hours, the telephone rang. Roland dragged himself out of bed.
“Hullo?”
“Is that Senor Bleke?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“Beware!”
Things were becoming intolerable. Roland had a certain amount of nerve, but not enough to enable him to bear up against this sinister persecution. Yet what could he do? Suppose he did beware to the extent of withdrawing his support from the royalist movement, what then? Bombito. If ever there was a toad under the harrow, he was that toad. And all because a perfectly respectful admiration for the caoutchouc had led him to occupy a stage-box several nights in succession at the theater where the peerless Maraquita tied herself into knots.
There was an air of unusual excitement in Maraquita’s manner at their next meeting.
“We have been in communication with Him,” she whispered. “He will receive you. He will give an audience to the Savior of Paranoya.”
“Eh? Who will?”
“Our beloved Alejandro. He wishes to see his faithful servant. We are to go to him at once.”
“Where?”
“At his own house. He will receive you in person.”
Such was the quality of the emotions through which he had been passing of late, that Roland felt but a faint interest at the prospect of meeting face to face a genuine—if exiled—monarch. The thought did flit through his mind that they would sit up a bit in old Fineberg’s office if they could hear of it, but it brought him little consolation.
The cab drew up at a gloomy-looking house in a fashionable square. Roland rang the door-bell. There seemed a certain element of the prosaic in the action. He wondered what he should say to the butler.
There was, however, no need for words. The door opened, and they were ushered in without parley. A butler and two footmen showed them into a luxuriously furnished anteroom. Roland entered with two thoughts running in his mind. The first was that the beloved Alejandro had got an uncommonly snug crib; the second that this was exactly like going to see the dentist.
Presently the squad of retainers returned, the butler leading.
“His Majesty will receive Mr. Bleke.”
Roland followed him with tottering knees.
His Majesty, King Alejandro the Thirteenth, on the retired list, was a genial-looking man of middle age, comfortably stout about the middle and a little bald as to the forehead. He might have been a prosperous stock-broker. Roland felt more at his ease at the very sight of him.
“Sit down, Mr. Bleke,” said His Majesty, as the door closed. “I have been wanting to see you for some time.”
Roland had nothing to say. He was regaining his composure, but he had a long way to go yet before he could feel thoroughly at home.
King Alejandro produced a cigaret-case, and offered it to Roland, who shook his head speechlessly. The King lit a cigaret and smoked thoughtfully for a while.
“You know, Mr. Bleke,” he said at last, “this must stop. It really must. I mean your devoted efforts on my behalf.”
Roland gaped at him.
“You are a very young man. I had expected to see some one much older. Your youth gives me the impression that you have gone into this affair from a spirit of adventure. I can assure you that you have nothing to gain commercially by interfering with my late kingdom. I hope, before we part, that I can persuade you to abandon your idea of financing this movement to restore me to the throne.
“I don’t understand—er—your majesty.”
“I will explain. Please treat what I shall say as strictly confidential. You must know, Mr. Bleke, that these attempts to re-establish me as a reigning monarch in Paranoya are, frankly, the curse of an otherwise very pleasant existence. You look surprized? My dear sir, do you know Paranoya? Have you ever been there? Have you the remotest idea what sort of life a King of Paranoya leads? I have tried it, and I can assure you that a coal-heaver is happy by comparison. In the first place, the climate of the country is abominable. I always had a cold in the head. Secondly, there is a small but energetic section of the populace whose sole recreation it seems to be to use their monarch as a target for bombs. They are not very good bombs, it is true, but one in, say, ten explodes, and even an occasional bomb is unpleasant if you are the target.
“Finally, I am much too fond of your delightful country to wish to leave it. I was educated in England—I am a Magdalene College man—and I have the greatest horror of ever being compelled to leave it. My present life suits me exactly. That is all I wished to say, Mr. Bleke. For both our sakes, for the sake of my comfort and your purse, abandon this scheme of yours.”