Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/249

 He turned with a warm smile on his face, and silenced the king, who began remonstrating.

"I'll tend to my part of it," he said. "It's up to you to do yours. Let me handle the situation here. You must rush back to your rooms, summon the heralds, get into your state glory so as to be more impressive than Solomon, and hurry down to the Market Place."

He consulted his watch.

"You've no time to lose. If I were you I'd not let them know but that you personally summoned them. You'd better go now, and, whatever you do, don't let Provarsk know you've been here."

He fairly shoved the king toward the door, hushing his protestations of gratitude with a gruff—"We can talk about all that later. Not now! Not now! Hurry!"

He carefully closed the safe and swung the book case back into its normal position, after which, for some minutes, he stood scowling thoughtfully out over the garden, as if formulating new plans, and then walked slowly across to the door and opened it.

"I'd like to speak to you," he said to the guard. "Come inside."

The man hesitated, looked up and down the corridor and grinned. Kent was secretly pleased and knew that he was not mistaken in his surmise [245]