The King's Men Part 19

"You are very tired?" questioned old Bugbee.

"No; not very. But I should like some supper--and a gla.s.s of wine."

Mr. Bugbee touched a bell and gave an order.

"It is almost midnight?" she asked.

"It is after twelve--ten minutes. The morning of the great day has come."

And the old banker looked into the eyes of the young Beauty, and almost smiled in response to her low, derisive laugh.

"He came to-day, then?" she asked.

"Yesterday," corrected Mr. Bugbee; "at noon, he landed from my steam-yacht, in the very heart of London. So much for the international police."

"Do they know?" said Mrs. Oswald Carey. "Does Sir John Dacre know?"

"Sir John Dacre helped the King into his carriage when he landed. He knows that he is here, and expects to meet him at Aldershot to-morrow."

While pretending to move and speak as if quite at ease, Mr. Bugbee was obviously nervous and unsettled. Mrs. Carey observed this, but without appearing to do so.

"Where is your husband?" Mr. Bugbee asked quietly, with his face turned from Mrs. Carey, whose side view he had before him in a low mirror. He saw her move in her chair, and slowly look him all over, and then glance down as if considering her answer.

"He is on the Continent--at Nice, I think."

She had dined with him that day, but did not know that from the dinner Oswald Carey had come straight to Mr. Bugbee's house to keep an appointment with the wily "King's Banker," who wished to know how the Beauty had spent the day, and whom she had seen.

"What a liar she is!" muttered old Bugbee, but he smiled at himself in the mirror, as if approving his superior astuteness.

"Then there is no danger of his making a noise about your absence from home to-night. Some husbands would be alarmed, and might apply to the police."

Mrs. Carey looked up to see if Bugbee were serious; and then she laughed heartily and rather loudly, while he held up his hands with an alarmed expression.

"Hush!" and the frown of the old man was something to remember. "They observe as much formality as if he were in Windsor Palace."

"Well--he will be there to-day, will he not?" and Mrs. Carey looked innocently at the banker.

He came closer and bent his broad, bare poll to her as he spoke:

"No! He will never see Windsor again."

"But the Royalists--will they not raise the King's flag to-day?" Still the guileless surprise in her face, which had its effect on old Bugbee.

"Yes; they will strike to-day at Aldershot--and they will be defeated."

"How do you know? Have they not plenty of men?"

"Men? Men are only in the way. They have no money."

"And the King? Will he be taken?"

"He will not be there," and Mr. Bugbee drew close to the Beauty again.

"Where will he be?" she asked.

"Here--with you! You will save him by detaining him."

She sat still, and looked at him with a steady stare. She knew quite well what purpose the old banker had in mind, and what she had come there for. But she meant to play her own game, not Bugbee's.

Her own game was to get the old King under her own influence, whether he went to reign in Windsor or to rust in America. She knew his character well, and she had little doubt of her power if she could only get the reins. From that position she knew enough, too, to overcome all scruples of conscience in the King's conscientious banker.

Bugbee was playing against two possible results--the success of the King or his death. Either was ruin for him. Investigation would follow, whether George were a king or a corpse. So long as he remained in exile the Republicans would never attempt to confiscate the private fortune of the banished monarch; while, on the other hand, the royal exile would not venture to appeal to the courts against his banker, thereby exposing his enormous wealth to the cupidity of the Republicans.

"You have gone too far," said Mrs. Carey, steadily looking at the banker; "I shall do nothing of the kind. My reputation--"

"Shall be quite safe--your husband being at Nice," and old Bugbee's was the guileless face now.

"Humph!"

"No one else will miss you for two days."

"Ah! for two days. And then?"

"Then you go home; you have been visiting your American friends, or any other friends out of London."

"Yes; that is all very well," Mrs. Carey said quietly. "And he--the King?"

"He will return to America at once, leaving this house in two days, when all is quiet, to go on board the steam-yacht which brought him over."

Mrs. Carey said nothing more for nearly a minute.

"Where is that yacht now?" she asked at length.

"In London;" and the old banker dovetailed his fingers and stood with a smile as if ready for all questions.

"And for my services--my a.s.sistance in this game of yours--"

"Pardon me," interrupted Bugbee, sententiously, "it is not a game of mine. It is my plan to save the King from certain destruction."

"Well, whatever it is," said Mrs. Oswald Carey, impatiently, "for my part of it I shall have--what?"

"Ten thousand pounds," answered old Bugbee, dropping the words slowly.

"When?"

"When the King is safe--when he is gone. In two days' time."

"That will not do!" and there was a ring of purpose in the Beauty's voice that made the old banker's heart beat quicker, and made him keenly attentive. She repeated: "That will not do! He may not go to America, or he may not remain here. He may be captured, or he may be killed. He may go to Aldershot to-morrow, despite all your plans. You know he intends to go. But I--I shall have risked everything, whether you win or lose, and at your bidding. Oh, no, my dear Mr. Bugbee, it will not do at all."