“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?”