She laughed, and twisted her face around to bite at one of my hands on her shoulders.
“He’s got ideals,” she explained. “He despises you and your king for a pair of adventurers who are making a profit out of his country’s troubles. That’s why he’s so sniffy. But he’ll keep his word.”
Maybe he would, I thought, but he hadn’t given me his word—the girl had.
“I’m going over to see His Majesty,” I said. “I won’t be long—then I’ll join you up in his suite. What was the idea of the sewing act? I had no buttons off.”
“You did,” she contradicted me, rummaging in my pocket for cigarettes. “I pulled one off when one of our men told me you and Einarson were headed this way. I thought it would look domestic.”
XVI
Lionel Rex
I found my king in a wine and gold drawing-room in the Executive Residence, surrounded by Muravia’s socially and politically ambitious. Uniforms were still in the majority, but a sprinkling of civilians had finally got to him, along with their wives and daughters. He was too occupied to see me for a few minutes, so I stood around, looking the folks over. Particularly one—a tall girl in black, who stood apart from the others, at a window.
I noticed her first because she was beautiful in face and body, and then I studied her more closely because of the expression in the brown eyes with which she watched the new king. If ever anybody looked proud of anybody else, this girl did of Grantham. The way she stood there, alone, by the window, and looked at him—he would have had to be at least a combination of Apollo, Socrates, and Alexander to deserve half of it. Valeska Radnjak, I supposed.
I looked at the boy. His face was proud and flushed, and every two seconds turned toward the girl at the window while he listened to the jabbering of the worshipful group around him. I knew he wasn’t any Apollo-Socrates-Alexander, but he managed to look the part. He had found a spot in the world that he liked. I was half sorry he couldn’t hang on to it, but my regrets didn’t keep me from deciding that I had wasted enough time.
I pushed through the crowd toward him. He recognized me with the eyes of a park sleeper being awakened from sweet dreams by a nightstick on his shoe-soles. He excused himself to the others and took me down a corridor to a room with stained glass windows and richly carved office furniture.
“This was Doctor Semich’s office,” he told me. “I shall—” He broke off and looked away from me.
“You’ll be in Greece by tomorrow,” I said bluntly.
He frowned at his feet, a stubborn frown.
“You ought to know you can’t hold on,” I argued. “You may think everything is going smoothly. If you do, you’re deaf, dumb, and blind. I put you in with the muzzle of a gun against Einarson’s liver. I’ve kept you in this long by kidnapping him. I’ve made a deal with Djudakovich—the only strong man I’ve seen here. It’s up to him to handle Einarson. I can’t hold him any longer. Djudakovich will make a good dictator, and a good king later, if he wants it. He promises you four million dollars and a special train and safe-conduct to Saloniki. You go out with your head up. You’ve been a king. You’ve taken a country out of bad hands and put it into good—this fat guy is real. And you’ve made yourself a million profit.”
Grantham looked at me and said:
“No. You go. I shall see it through. These people have trusted me, and I shall—”
“My God, that’s old Doc Semich’s line! These people haven’t trusted you—not a bit of it. I’m the people who trusted you. I made you king, understand? I made you king so you could go home with your chin up—not so you could stay here and make an ass of yourself! I bought help with promises. One of them was that you’d get out within twenty-four hours. You’ve got to keep the promises I made in your name. The people trusted you, huh? You were crammed down their throats, my son! And I did the cramming! Now I’m going to uncram you. If it happens to be tough on your romance—if your Valeska won’t take any price less than this lousy country’s throne—that’s—”
“That’s enough.” His voice came from some point at least fifty feet above me. “You shall have your abdication. I don’t want the money. You will send word to me when the train is ready.”
“Write the get-out now,” I ordered.
He went over to the desk, found a sheet of paper, and with a steady hand wrote that in leaving Muravia he renounced his throne and all rights to it. He signed the paper Lionel Rex
and gave it to me. I pocketed it and began sympathetically:
“I can understand your feelings, and I’m sorry that—”
He put his back to me and walked out of the room. I returned to the hotel.
At the fifth floor I left the elevator and walked softly to the door of my room. No sound came through. I tried the door, found it unlocked, and went in. Emptiness. Even my clothes and bags were gone. I went up to Grantham’s suite.
Djudakovich, Romaine, Einarson, and half the police force were there.
XVII
Mob Law
Colonel Einarson sat very erect in an armchair in the middle of the room. Dark hair and mustache bristled. His chin was out, muscles bulged everywhere in his florid face, his eyes were hot—he was in one of his finest scrapping moods. That came of giving him an audience.
I scowled at Djudakovich, who stood on widespread giant’s legs with his back to a window. Why hadn’t the fat fool known enough to keep Einarson off in a lonely corner, where he could be handled? Djudakovich looked sleepily at my scowl.
Romaine floated around and past the policeman who
