He is in Hunyadi Street, Lower Hunyadi Street, Mile. Toscanelli does not recollect the number, but there was an apthecary on the corner, and a bicycle shop next door to it.
It was as she said. However, the entire block had been erected by a builder who had used one set of house-plans. All the houses look alike; Mile. Toscanelli could not remember which one it was. Not even the sight of the police, while she was still gazing up and down the block, aided her memory. And, when even the offer of another fifty ducats failed, it had to be assumed she was telling the truth.
Ah, how many police, and so suddenly, in Lower Hunyadi Street! And in the streets behind. And all around —
The apothecary’s lips trembled. “But there was nothing illegal about it,” he protested. “I have a license to sell opium. Fifty pillules of the anhydrous, here, all properly noted in my Record Book. See? See? Well, if I am shouted at, I cannot think what house!”
By the time he had gotten his nerves and his memory together, the police were being reinforced by soldiery. The residents of Lower Hunyadi Street seemed divided between a desire to utilize the best seats, those by their windows, and view the show — whatever its purpose might be — and a desire to barricade their windows with bedding, china-closets, and clothes - cabinets.
“Open up, Number Forty-four! Open up! Concierge! Porter!”
Fifty years of almost-unbroken peace under the Triune Monarchy had not fully persuaded the inhabitants out of the habit formed during fifty pervious decades of almost-unbroken war. The gates of the houses in Bella tend to be thick.
“Well,” said Lobats, “we may as well send for the Firemen.” Axes, ladders, a full siege.
Eszterhazy was sure that the porter — or someone — was watching. Someone who could open the doors without a violent assault — if he — or she — wished to.
“Hold up,” he said. The police drew back. Then the soldiers. Eszterhazy walked across the street towards Number 44. Halfway across he stopped, drew his hand from his pocket, and, arm at the traditional forty-five degree angle, held up the Provo. A great sigh seemed to go up all around him. A moment later the gates swung open. He gestured to Lobats. They walked in.
A woman, not so old as concierges are generally assumed to be, stood to one side, sobbing. “The poor man!” she cried. “The poor man! So suppose — suppose he is cracked. What if he does think he is King? Does that hurt the real King?” The two men went on through the empty courtyard, started up the stairs. “Don’t be hurting him!” the woman screamed. “Don’you be hurting him ... the poor man ....”
He sat facing them, as they went in — and it had not taken them long to get in — but, in a moment, they realized that he was not really facing them at all. He was facing a full-length mirror. Somehow he had made shift to fix up a dais, and he had draped the chair all in crimson. It made do for a throne. He sat in his sleazy “robes” of state, cape and gown and collar of cotton-wool spotted with black tufts to resemble ermine. It was all false, even across foot-lights it would have looked almost false. His head was slumped to one side.
But the crown was on his head, his tell-tale head, the crown with its pendants was on his head, so tightly that it had not fallen off; and the orb and sceptre, though his hands had slid into his lap, still his hands clenched them tightly.
For most of his life he had been no one and nobody. For now, however, he was as much King of Jerusalem as the Crown Jewels could make him — or anyone — King of Jerusalem.
The crown and orb and sceptre of the ancient and mysterious Regalia. They, and the fully fatal dose of fifty pillules of anhydrous opium.