"Well," I began, "the Leithcourts took Rannoch Castle, close to my uncle's place, near Dumfries. I got to know them, of course, and often shot with his party. One day, however, I was amazed to notice in one of the rooms the photograph of a lady, the exact counterpart of that picture which, I recollect, I told you when in Leghorn I had found torn up on board the Lola. You recollect what I narrated about my strange adventure, don't you?"
"I remember every word," was his answer. "Go on. What did you do?"
"Nothing. I held my tongue. But when I discovered that the fellow who called himself Woodroffe—the man who had represented himself as the owner of the Lola, and who, no doubt, had had a hand in breaking open Hutcheson's safe in the Consulate—was engaged to Muriel, I became full of suspicion."
"Well?"
"Woodroffe, after meeting me, disappeared—went to Hamburg, they said, on business. Then other things occurred. A man and woman were found murdered up in the wood about a mile and a half from the castle. The man was made up to represent my man Olinto--I believe you've seen him in Leghorn?"
"What! They've killed Olinto?" he gasped, starting from his chair.
"No. The fellow was made up very much like him. But his wife Armida was killed."
"They killed the woman, and believed they had also killed her husband, eh?" he said bitterly through his teeth, and I saw that his strong hands grasped the arms of his chair firmly. "And Martin Woodroffe is engaged to Muriel Leithcourt. Are you certain of this?"
"Yes; quite certain."
"And is there no suspicion as to who is the assassin of the woman Santini and this mysterious man who posed as her husband?"
"None whatever."
For some time Jack Durnford smoked in silence, and I could just distinguish his white, hard face in the faint light, for it was now late, and the big electric lamps had been turned out and we were in semi-darkness.
"That fellow shall never marry Muriel," he declared in a fierce, hoarse voice. "What you have just told me reveals the truth. Did you meet Chater?"
"He appeared suddenly at Rannoch, and the Leithcourts fled precipitately and have not since been heard of."
"Ah, no wonder!" he remarked with a dry laugh. "No wonder! But look here, Gordon, I'm not going to stand by and let that scoundrel Woodroffe marry Muriel."
"You love her, perhaps?" I hazarded.
"Yes, I do love her," he admitted. "And, by heaven!" he cried, "I will tell the truth and crush the whole of their ingenious plot. Have you met Elma Heath?" he asked.
"Yes," I said in quick anxiety.
"Then listen," he said in a low, earnest voice. "Listen, and I'll tell you something.
"There is a greater mystery surrounding that yacht, the Lola, than you have ever imagined, my dear old chap," declared Jack Durnford, looking me straight in the face. "When you told me about it on the quarter-deck that day outside Leghorn, I was half a mind to tell you what I knew. Only one fact prevented me—my disinclination to reveal my own secrets. I loved Muriel Leithcourt, yet, afloat as I was, I could never see her—I could not obtain from her own lips the explanation I desired. Yet I would not prejudge her—no, and I won't now!" he added with a fierce resolution.
"I love her," he went on, "and she reciprocates my love. Ours is a secret engagement made in Malta two years ago, and yet you tell me that she has pledged herself to that fellow Woodroffe—the man known here in London as Dick Archer. I can't believe it--I really can't, old fellow. She could never write to me as she has done, urging patience and secrecy until my return."
"Unless, of course, she desired to gain time," I suggested.
But my friend was silent; his brows were deep knit.
"Woodroffe is at the present moment in Petersburg," I said. "I've just come back from there."
"In St. Petersburg!" he gasped, surprised. "Then he is with that villainous official, Baron Oberg, the Governor-General of Finland."
"No; Oberg is living shut up in his palace at Helsingfors, fearing to go out lest he shall be assassinated," was my answer.
"And Elma? What has become of her?"
"She is in hiding in Petersburg, awaiting such time as I can get her safely out of Russia," and then, continuing, I explained how she had been maimed and rendered deaf and dumb.
"What!" he cried fiercely. "Have they actually done that to the poor girl? Then they feared that she should reveal the nature of their plot, for she had seen and heard."
"Seen and heard what?"
"Be patient; we will elucidate this mystery, and the motive of this terrible infliction upon her. Muriel wrote to me saying that poor Elma, her friend, had disappeared, and she feared that some evil had also happened to her. So Oberg had sent her to his fortress—his own private Bastille—the place to which, on pretended charges of conspiracy against Russia, he sends those who thwart him to a living tomb."
"I have seen him, and I have defied him," I said.
"You have! Man alive! be careful. He's not a fellow who sticks at trifles," said Jack warningly.
"I don't fear," I replied. "Elma's enemies are also mine."
"Then I take it, old fellow, that notwithstanding her affliction, you are actually in love with her?"
"I intend to rescue, and to marry her," I answered quite frankly.
"But first we must tear aside this veil of mystery and ascertain all the facts concerning her," he said. "At present I only know one or two very vague details. The baron is certainly not her uncle, as he represents himself to be, but it seems certain that she is the daughter of Anglo-Russian parents, and was born in Russia and brought to England when a child."
"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?"
