A SURPRISE FOR JESSIE
Her majesty was in the hall as Jessie had anticipated. She was chatting
quite gaily with Lady Merehaven as the girl came up. She flashed Jessie
a significant glance.
"Your aunt has been pleased to accede to my whim," she said. "And so you
are coming with me, Vera. I understand your maid is sending everything
to our hotel. Good-night, Lady Merehaven, and please do not allow those
people to play cards too long. My dear child, come along."
"It is a very great honour for the child," Lady Merehaven murmured.
"Good-night, madame, good-night."
The queen swept Jessie into the brougham before her. There was a tiny
electric lamp behind the queen's head so that it shone full on Jessie's
face. Jessie felt the latter's eyes going all over her.
"Now tell me your story," she said. "Tell me freely and don't be afraid.
I shall be your good friend."
"You give me courage to proceed," Jessie murmured. "In the first place
I'll tell you why I so dreaded passing the night at Merehaven House. I
should certainly have been found out in the morning and then everything
would have been ruined. Not that I cared for myself, but for the sake of
others. Madame, is it possible that you fail to see that I am not Miss
Galloway at all?"
The queen fairly gasped with astonishment. Those dark eyes of hers took
in Jessie's identity. It was a long time before she spoke again.
"You are quite right," she said slowly and thoughtfully. "I notice
little subtle differences now you mention it. And yet the likeness is
wonderful. My dear, you are a lady."
"I am a lady, yes. My father was Colonel Harcourt, in fact I am a
connection of the Merehavens. There has been nothing vulgar about my
adventure to-night."
"That I am absolutely certain of. Really, the likeness is marvellous.
And I have been talking to you and confiding in you all the evening as
if you were my friend Vera Galloway."
"Instead of your friend Jessie Harcourt," the girl said with a wistful
smile. "Believe me, I am as devoted to your interests as is the one
whose part I play. I have given proof of it enough to-night. I might
have gone on deceiving you to the end but I could not do it."
"I see, I see. You are telling the truth, you are making me love you.
And why did you do this for one who a little time ago was a perfect
stranger to you? If you know anything of our cause----"
"But I do now--and you can command me in any way. Perhaps I had better
begin at the beginning. It was Vera Galloway who took me up. She came to
me at a moment when I was absolutely desperate. It is strange how the
warp of fate has dragged me into this business!"
"You cannot tell how deeply I am interested," the queen said softly.
"It is very good of your majesty. Miss Galloway came to me. She had
heard of me, evidently. She came to me at the very moment when I was
dismissed from my situation. I had been accused of a disgraceful
flirtation with the son of one of the shop customers. As a matter of
fact the coward had tried to kiss me and he let all the blame rest on my
shoulders. I was dismissed without any chance of a further situation, I
had only a few shillings in the world and an invalid sister partially
dependent upon me. At that moment I was desperate enough for anything.
Quite early the complication began. The name of the coward who brought
all this trouble on me was Prince Boris Mazaroff."
"I am not surprised," the queen said with just a touch of weary scorn in
her voice. "We are all creatures of fate. I know that I am. But the
coincidence is a little strange."
"Miss Galloway wrote me a letter and asked me to call upon her in my
working dress. When I saw her I could not but be struck by the amazing
likeness between us. Then she unfolded her plan--the plan that we were
to change places for a little time. Someone whom she cared for was in
trouble and it was impossible that she should get away without being
suspected. Your Majesty may guess that the somebody in trouble was no
other than Mr. Charles Maxwell and at the bottom of the trouble was the
missing papers relating to Asturia."
The queen nodded, her dark eyes gleaming in the light of the lamp.
"I see," she exclaimed. "Those papers that found their way into the
hands of the Countess Saens. The papers that she was robbed of almost as
soon as she had obtained possession of them. What an amazing daring
thing to do. I seem to see quite clearly now. Miss Galloway slipped off
and stole them while all the time her friends and relations thought
that she was in the house of her uncle! Ah, what will not a woman do for
the sake of the man she loves! And she was quite successful!"
"Quite. We know that by the scene made by the countess' maid at
Merehaven House. I did not guess until the maid looked at me and said
that I was the thief. Of course everybody who heard it laughed, but the
woman stuck to her story. The statement was a flood of light to me, when
I heard it I knew then exactly what had happened as well as if I had
been present and seen the robbery."
"Vera Galloway saved Asturia and her lover at the same time," the queen
said. "But why did not Miss Galloway come back and resume her proper
place?"
"Oh, that is the unfortunate part of it," Jessie said sadly. "She was so
overcome with her good fortune that she walked down Piccadilly in a
dazed state. Then she was run over by a cab and taken to Charing Cross
Hospital. She is there at this moment."
A cry of passionate anger broke from the queen. Her hands were clasped
together closely.
"Of all the misfortunes!" she gasped. "Will nothing ever come right
here? Go on and tell me the worst."
"The worst is that Vera lost the papers," Jessie resumed. "When the news
of the accident came to me, I slipped out and with great risk went to
the hospital. Dr. Varney gave me a permit. Vera had lost the papers, she
had not the least idea what had become of them. But that is not all.
Countess Saens has found out that a girl answering to my description had
been taken to the hospital and she went there. Fortunately she was
refused admission. But she will get this in the morning and that is why
I want to go out so early. The suspicions of the countess are aroused,
she begins to understand. And there is Prince Mazaroff."
"What can he possibly have to do with it?" the Queen asked.
"Your Majesty is forgetting that Prince Mazaroff knows both Vera
Galloway and Jessie Harcourt, the shop girl whom he honoured with his
hated attentions. He knows that there is a girl in London identical in
looks to Miss Galloway, he heard what Countess Saens's maid said. Indeed
he went so far to-night to hint to Lord Merehaven that a trick was being
played upon her ladyship. There is only one thing that prevented his
discovery outright."
"And what was that?" the queen asked. "Why should he hesitate?"
"Because he was not absolutely sure of his ground," Jessie said. "He
knew the shop girl Jessie Harcourt. But he was puzzled because he did
not imagine that a shop girl would be so wonderfully at ease in good
society and have all the manners of it at her fingers' ends. He did not
know that the Bond Street girl was of gentle birth, and he was puzzled.
Do you see my point?"
The queen saw the point perfectly well and admitted that it was a very
clever one.
"I am more than glad that you have told me all this," she said in a
thrilling voice. "Your frankness may save the situation in the long run.
One thing is certain, we must get Vera out of the hospital and back
again here without delay. And for the time being you must disappear. I
seem to have as many enemies here as I have in Asturia, only they are
cleverer ones. These people are all in the pay of Russia. Countess Saens
must be baffled at any cost. Wait a moment."
The carriage had pulled up, but the footman did not dismount from the
box. So far as Jessie could judge, the carriage had stopped nowhere near
the Queen of Asturia's headquarters. She smiled as Jessie looked up with
a questioning eye.
"You are wondering why we are here," she said. "It is imperative before
I sleep to-night that I should have a few words with General Maxgregor.
I understand that he has a suite of rooms in the big block of flats. I
fancy those are his windows on the second floor, those with the lights
up. Somebody has just come in and looked out of the window. My child,
who is that?"
The queen's voice changed suddenly, her tones were harsh and rasping. A
man in evening dress stood in one of the lighted windows looking out.
"You saw what happened at Lady Merehaven's," the queen went on. "We left
the king there with the faithful Alexis behind his chair. We have come
direct here. The whole thing is maddening. Who do you reckon that man to
be who was looking out of the window?"
Jessie looked up with bewildered eyes. The old dreamy feeling was coming
over her again. She gazed steadily at the figure framed in the flood of
light.
"There is no mistake about it," she gasped. "That is his majesty the
King of Asturia!"