"But from whom do you expect I can obtain the true facts concerning her, and the reason of the baron"s desire to keep her silent?"
"Ah!" he said, twisting his mustache thoughtfully. "That"s just the question. For a solution of the problem we must first fathom the motive of the Leithcourts and the reason they fled in fear before that fellow Chater. That Muriel is innocent of any complicity in their plot, whatever it may be, I feel convinced. She may be the victim of that blackleg Woodroffe, who, as Bartlett has told you, is one of the most expert swindlers in London, and who has already done two terms of penal servitude."
"But what was the motive in breaking open the Consul"s safe, if not to obtain the Foreign Office or Admiralty ciphers? Perhaps they wanted to steal them and sell them to a foreign government?"
"No; that was not their object. I"ve thought over it many, many times since you told me, and I feel convinced that Woodroffe is too shrewd a fellow not to have known that no Consul goes away on leave and allows his ciphers to remain behind. When he leaves his post he always deposits those precious books either at the Foreign Office here or with his Consul-General, or with a Consul at another port. They"d surely ascertain all that before they made the raid, you bet. The affair was a risky one, and d.i.c.k Archer is known as a man of many precautions."
"But he is on extremely friendly terms with Elma. It was he who succeeded in finding her in Finland, and taking her beyond Oberg"s sphere of influence to Petersburg."
"Then it is certainly only an affected friendship, with some sinister motive underlying it."
"She wrote a letter from her island prison to an old schoolfellow named Lydia Moreton, asking her to see Woodroffe at his rooms in Cork Street, and tell him that through all she was suffering she had kept her promise to him, and that the secret was still safe."
"Exactly. And now the fellow fears that as you are so actively searching out the truth, she may yield to your demands and explain. He therefore intends to silence her."
"What! to kill her, you mean?" I gasped, in quick apprehension.
"Well, he might do so, in order to save himself, you see," Jack replied, adding: "He certainly would have no compunction if he thought that it would not be brought home to him. Only he, no doubt, fears you, because you have found her, and are in love with her."
I admitted the force of his argument, but recollected that my dear one was safe in concealment, and that the Princess was our friend, even though I, as an Englishman, had no sympathy with the doctrine of the bomb and the knife.
I tried to get from him all that he knew concerning Elma, but he seemed, for some curious reason, disinclined to tell. All I could gather was that Leithcourt was in league with Chater and Woodroffe, and that Muriel had acted as an entirely innocent agent. What the conspiracy was, or what was its motive, I could not discern. I was as far off the solution of the problem as ever.
"We must first find Muriel," he declared, when I pressed him to tell me everything he knew. "There are facts you have told me which negative my own theories, and only from her can we obtain the real truth."
"But surely you know where she is? She writes to you," I said.
"The last letter, which I received at Gib. ten days ago, was from the Hotel Bristol, at Botzen, in the Tyrol, yet Bartlett says she has been seen down at Eastbourne."
"But you have an address where you always write to her, I suppose?"
"Yes, a secret one. I have written and made an appointment, but she has not kept it. She has been prevented, of course. She may be with her parents, and unable to come to London."
"You did not know that they had fled, and were in hiding?"
"Of course not. What I"ve heard to-night is news to me--amazing news."
"And does it not convey to you the truth?"
"It does--a ghastly truth concerning Elma Heath," he answered in a low voice, as though speaking to himself.
"Tell me. What? I"m dying, Jack, to know everything concerning her. Who is that fellow Oberg?"
"Her enemy. She, by mere accident, learned his secret and Woodroffe"s, and they now both live in deadly fear of her."
"And for that reason she was taken to Siena, where some villainous Italian doctor was bribed to render her deaf and dumb."
He nodded in the affirmative.
"But Chater?"
"I know very little concerning him. He may have conspired with them, or he may be innocent. It seems as though he were antagonistic to their schemes, if Leithcourt and his family really fled from him."
"And yet he was on board the _Lola_. Indeed, he may have helped to commit the burglary at the Consulate," I said.
"Quite likely," he answered. "But our first object must be to rediscover Muriel. Paget says she is in Eastbourne. If she is there, we shall easily find her. They publish visitors" lists in the papers, don"t they, like they do at Hastings?" Then he added: "Visitors" lists are most annoying when you find your name printed in them when you are supposed officially to be somewhere else. I was had once like that by the Bournemouth papers, when I was supposed to be on duty over at Queenstown. I narrowly escaped a terrible wigging."
"Shall we go to Eastbourne?" I suggested eagerly. "I"ll go there with you in the morning."
"Or would it not be best to send an urgent wire to the address where I always write? She would then reply here, no doubt. If she"s in Eastbourne, there may be reasons why she cannot come up to town. If her people are in hiding, of course she won"t come. But she"ll make an appointment with me, no doubt."
"Very well. Send a wire," I said. "And make it urgent. It will then be forwarded. But as regards Olinto? Would you like to see him? He might tell you more than he has told me."
"No; by no means. He must not know that I have returned to London,"
declared my friend quickly. "You had better not see him--you understand."
"Then his interests are--well, not exactly our own?"
"No."
"But why don"t you tell me more about Elma?" I urged, for I was eager to learn all he knew. "Come, do tell me!" I implored.
"I"ve told you practically everything, my dear old fellow," was his response. "The revelation of the true facts of the affair can be made only by Muriel. I tell you, we must find her."
"Yes, we must--at all hazards," I said. "Let"s go across to the telegraph office opposite Charing Cross. It"s open always." And we rose and walked out along the Strand, now nearly deserted, and despatched an urgent message to Muriel at an address in Hurlingham Road, Fulham.
Afterwards we stood outside on the curb, still talking, I loth to part from him, when there pa.s.sed by in the shadow two men in dark overcoats, who crossed the road behind us to the front of Charing Cross station, and then continued on towards Trafalgar Square.
As the light of the street lamp fell upon them, I thought I recognized the face of one as that of a person I had seen before, yet I was not at all certain, and my failure to remember whom the pa.s.ser-by resembled prevented me from saying anything further to Jack than:
"A fellow I know has just gone by, I think."
"We seem to be meeting hosts of friends to-night," he laughed. "After all, old chap, it does one good to come back to our dear, dirty old town again. We abuse it when we are here, and talk of the life in Paris, and Vienna, and Brussels, but when we are away there is no place on earth so dear to us, for it is "home." But there!" he laughed, "I"m actually growing romantic. Ah! if we could only find Muriel! But we must to-morrow. Ta-ta! I shall go around to the club and sleep, for I haven"t fixed on any diggings yet. Come in at ten to-morrow, and we will decide upon some plan. One thing is plainly certain; Elma must at once be got out of Russia. She"s in deadly peril of her life there."
"Yes," I said. "And you will help me?"
"With all my heart, old fellow," answered my friend, warmly grasping my hand, and then we parted, he strolling along towards the National Gallery on his way back to the "Junior," while I returned to the _Cecil_ alone.
CHAPTER XVI
MARKED MEN
"Captain Durnford?" I inquired of the hall-porter of the club next morning.