“Why do you say that?”

“Oh — nothing.”

Koupriane questioned his men further.  They replied categorically.  No, nothing had been found that directly incriminated anybody; and suddenly Rouletabille noted that the conversation of the police and their chief had grown more animated.  Koupriane had become angry and was violently reproaching them.  They excused themselves with vivid gesture and rapid speech.

Koupriane started away.  Rouletabille followed him.  What had happened?

As he came up behind Koupriane, he asked the question.  In a few curt words, still hurrying on, Koupriane told the reporter he had just learned that the police had left the little Bohemian Katharina alone for a moment with the expiring officer.  Katharina acted as housekeeper for Michael and Boris.  She knew the secrets of them both.  The first thing any novice should have known was to keep a constant eye upon her, and now no one knew where she was.  She must be searched for and found at once, for she had opened Michael’s shirt, and therein probably lay the reason that no papers were found on the corpse when the police searched it.  The absence of papers, of a portfolio, was not natural.

The chase commenced in the rosy dawn of the isles.  Already blood-like tints were on the horizon.  Some of the police cried that they had the trail.  They ran under the trees, because it was almost certain she had taken the narrow path leading to the bridge that joins Krestowsky to Kameny-Ostrow.  Some indications discovered by the police who swarmed to right and left of the path confirmed this hypothesis.  And no carriage in sight!  They all ran on, Koupriane among the first.  Rouletabille kept at his heels, but he did not pass him.  Suddenly there were cries and calls among the police.  One pointed out something below gliding upon the sloping descent.  It was little Kathanna.  She flew like the wind, but in a distracted course.  She had reached Kameny-Ostrow on the west bank.  “Oh, for a carriage, a horse!” clamored Koupriane, who had left his turn-out at Eliaguine.  “The proof is there.  It is the final proof of everything that is escaping us!”

Dawn was enough advanced now to show the ground clearly.  Katharina was easily discernible as she reached the Eliaguine bridge.  There she was in Eliaguine-Ostrow.  What was she doing there?  Was she going to the Trebassof villa?  What would she have to say to them?  No, she swerved to the right.  The police raced behind her.  She was still far ahead, and seemed untiring.  Then she disappeared among the trees, in the thicket, keeping still to the right.  Koupriane gave a cry of joy.  Going that way she must be taken.  He gave some breathless orders for the island to be barred.  She could not escape now!  She could not escape!  But where was she going?  Koupriane knew that island better than anybody.  He took a short cut to reach the other side, toward which Katharina seemed to be heading, and all at once he nearly fell over the girl, who gave a squawk of surprise and rushed away, seeming all arms and legs.