“The Regent commands,” he said.—“Attention! salute!” and with hands to visors the column went by; while Dehra, fingers at forehead in acknowledgment, watched it pass and go down the drive toward the Palace.
Then she turned, and put out her hand to the Archduke.
“I’m tired, dear,” she said, “very tired——Captain De Coursey, will you bring the carriage to the gate?”
“It is a most amazing situation,” said the Ambassador—as he and the Archduke sat in the latter’s headquarters, the following morning—“and one guess is about as likely to be right as another. It’s difficult to believe Spencer honest, and yet she seemed to play straight last night. She is of the sort who fiercely resent a blow and go to any length to repay it. And you think Bigler’s interruption was not prearranged?”
“It impressed me that way,” said Armand. “In fact, I’d say I am sure of it, if I had any but Lotzen or Spencer to deal with.”
“And you saw enough of the book to be satisfied it is the Laws?”
“To satisfy myself, yes—if that fool, Bigler, had waited a little longer, I would have known beyond a doubt.”
“And, as it is, you can’t be absolutely certain?”
“No; at least, not certain enough to make an open issue of it with Lotzen.”
“It is a great misfortune you were not able to make sure,” he said; “for I’m persuaded it was not the Book. As I told Her Highness that day at luncheon, if the Duke ever did have it, he has destroyed it to get rid of Frederick’s decree; and if there were no decree, then he would have produced it instantly as establishing his right to the Crown.”
“If that be true—and I grant the logic is not easy to avoid—what was it I saw? I would have sworn it was the Book; it resembled it in every particular.”
Courtney’s fingers went up to his gray imperial, and for a long while he smoked his cigarette and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.
“It is a fine mess,” he said, at length; “Spencer mixes it so abominably. What really brought her to Dornlitz?—how long has she been here?—did the Duke strike her—if there is a plot back of it, why should she have been selected to do the open work with you, of all people?—why, if Lotzen have the Book, doesn’t he destroy it?—why does he want you to see it in his very hands?—why, if he haven’t the Book, does he want to convince you that he has?—... If it’s a plot, then its object was either the one you suggest: to tempt you to violent measures against him to recover the Book, and so to discredit you with the Nobles when it’s not found; or—and this may be the more likely—to inveigle you into a death trap by using the Book as a lure.”