Page:Anthony Hope - Rupert of Hentzau.djvu/253

Rh "We shall know that better when you've asked for your audience. See here."

Rupert sat down by his cousin and instructed him in his task. This was no other than to discover whether there were a King in Strelsau, or whether the only King lay dead in the hunting-lodge. If there were no attempt being made to conceal the King's death, Rupert's plan was to seek safety in flight. He did not abandon his designs: from the secure vantage of foreign soil he would hold the Queen's letter over her head, and by the threat of publishing it ensure at once immunity for himself and almost any further terms which he chose to exact from her. If, on the other hand, the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim found a King in Strelsau, if the royal standards continued to wave at the summit of their flagstaffs, and Strelsau knew nothing of the dead man in the lodge, then Rupert had laid his hand on another secret; for he knew who the King in Strelsau must be. Starting from this point, his audacious mind darted forward to new and bolder schemes. He could offer again to Rudolf Rassendyll what he had offered once before, three years ago—a partnership in crime and the profits of crime—or if this advance were refused, then he declared that he would himself descend openly into the streets of Strelsau and proclaim the death of the King from the steps of the Cathedral.