Ducie with a smile handed over his handkerchief, and Platzoff proceeded to blindfold him—­an operation which was rapidly and effectually performed by the deft fingers of the Russian.

“Now, give me your hand and come with me, but do not speak till you are spoken to.”

So Ducie laid a finger in the Russian’s thin, cold palm, and the latter, taking a small bronze hand-lamp, conducted his bandaged companion from the room.

In two minutes after leaving the smoke-room Ducie’s geographical ideas of the place were completely at fault.  Platzoff led him through so many corridors and passages, turning now to the right hand, and now to the left—­he guided him up and down so many flights of stairs, now of stone and now of wood, that he lost his reckoning entirely and felt as though he were being conducted through some place far more spacious than Bon Repos.  He counted the number of stairs in each flight that he went up or down.  In two or three cases the numbers tallied, which induced him to think that Platzoff was conducting him twice over the same ground, in order perhaps the more effectually to confuse his ideas as to the position of the place to which he was being led.

After several minutes spent thus in silent perambulation of the old house, they halted for a moment while Platzoff unlocked a door, after which they passed forward into a room, in the middle of which Ducie was left standing while Platzoff relocked the door, and then busied himself for a minute in trimming the lamp he had brought with him, which had been his only guide through the dark and silent house, for the servants had all gone to bed more than an hour ago.

Ducie, thus left to himself for a little while, had time for reflection.  The floor on which he was standing was covered with a thick, soft carpet, consequently he was in one of the best rooms in the house.  The atmosphere of this room was penetrated with a very faint aroma of pot-pourri, so faint that unless Captain Ducie’s nose had been more than ordinarily keen he would never have perceived it.  To the best of his knowledge there was only one room in Bon Repos that was permeated with the peculiar scent of pot-pourri.  That room was M. Platzoff’s private study, to which access was obtained through his bed-room.  Ducie had been only twice into this room, but he remembered two facts in connection with it.  First, the scent already spoken of; secondly, that besides the door which opened into it from the bed-room, there was another door which he had noticed as being shut and locked both times that he was there.  If the room in which they now were was really M. Platzoff’s study, they had probably obtained access to it through the second door.

While silently revolving these thoughts in his mind, Captain Ducie’s fingers were busy with the formation of two tiny paper pellets, each no bigger than a pea.  Unseen by Platzoff, he contrived to drop these pellets on the carpet.