in the socket now. I removed the Rainbow Pearl from poor Monsieur Clopin's blind eye ten minutes after I burnt the letter, madame, and it passed out of this house to-night! A clever idea to pick up a one-eyed pauper, madame, and hide the pearl in the empty socket of the lost eye, but it was too bad you had to supply a glass eye to keep it in, after the lid and the socket had withered and shrunk from so many years of emptiness. It worried the poor man, madame; he was always feeling it, always afraid that the lump behind would force it out; and, what is an added misfortune for your plans, the glass shell did not allow you to see the change when the pearl vanished and the bit of beeswax took its place. Madame Tcharnovetski, your passport. I know enough of the King of Mauravania to be sure that your life will not be safe if you are not past the frontier before daybreak!"
* * * * *
"Monsieur le comte—no! I thank you, but I cannot wait to be presented to his Majesty, for I, too, leave Mauravania tonight, and, like madame yonder, return to other and more promising fields," said Cleek, an hour later, as he stood on the terrace of the Villa Irma and watched the slow progress down the moonlit avenue of the carriage which was bearing Madame Tcharnovetski and her effects to the railway station. "Give me the cheque, please; I have earned that, and there is good use for it. I thank you, count. Now do an act of charity, my friend: give the little dog in the stable a good meal, and then have a surgeon chloroform him into a peaceful and a merciful death. They will find the Rainbow Pearl in his intestines when they come to dissect the body. I starved him, count, starved him purposely, poor little wretch, so that he would be hungry enough to snap at anything in the way of food and bolt it instantly. Tonight, when I went up to take him out to the stable, a thick smearing of beef extract over the surface of the pearl was sufficient; he swallowed it in a gulp! For a double reason, count, there should be a cur quartered on the royal arms of this country after tonight."
His voice dropped off into silence. The carriage containing madame had swung out through the gateway, and its shadow no longer blotted the broad, unbroken space of moonlit avenue. He turned and looked far out, over the square of the Aquisola, along the light-lined esplanade, to the palace gates and the fluttering flag that streamed against the sky above and beyond them.
"Oh, Mauravania!" he said. "An Englishman's heritage! Dear country, how beautiful! My love to your Queen, my prayers for you."
"Monsieur!" exclaimed the count, "monsieur, what juggle is this? Your face is again the face of that other night, the face that stirs memory yet does not rivet it. Monsieur, speak, I beg of you. What are you? Who are you?"
"Cleek," he made answer. "Just Cleek! It will do. Oh, Mauravania, dear land of desolated hopes, dear grave of murdered joys!"
"Monsieur!"
"Hush! Let me alone. There are things too sacred; and this——" His hands reached outward as if in benediction; his face, upturned, was as a face transfigured, and something that shone as silver gleamed in the corner of his eye. "Mauravania!" he said. "Oh, Mauravania! My country—my people—good-bye!"
"Monsieur! Dear Heaven—Majesty!"
Then came a rustling sound, and when Cleek had mastered himself and looked down, a figure with head uncovered knelt on one knee at his feet.
"Get up, count," he said, with a little shaky laugh. "I appreciate the honour, but your fancy is playing you a trick. I tell you I never set foot in Mauravania before, my friend."
"I know, I know. How should you, Majesty, when it was as a child at Queen Karma's breast Mauravania last saw—— Don't leave like this! Majesty! Majesty! 'God guard the right'—the pearl and the kingdom are here."
"Wrong, my good friend. The kingdom is there, where you found me in England; and so, too, is the pearl. For there is no kingdom like the kingdom of love, count, and no pearl like a good woman."
"But, Majesty——"
"Good-night, count, and many thanks for your hospitality. You are a little upset to-night, but no doubt you will be all right again in the morning. I will walk to the station and alone, if it is all the same to you."
"Majesty!"
"Dreams, count, dreams. The riddle is solved, my friend. Good luck to your country and good-bye!"
And, setting his back to the palace and the lights and the fluttering flag, and his face to the land that held her, turned and went his way—to the West—to England—to those things which are higher than crowns and better than sceptres and more precious than thrones and ermine.
Cleek of Scotland Yard (1914)