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 I chose the wrong one. You heard me say that it would be easy for any one to impersonate Sonia Daviloff because her uncle had not seen her for so many years?”

“Yes?”

“Well, precisely the opposite held good also. It was equally easy for any one to impersonate the uncle.”

“What?”

“Savaronoff did die at the outbreak of the Revolution. The man who pretended to have escaped with such terrible hardships, the man so changed ‘that his own friends could hardly recognise him,’ the man who successfully laid claim to an enormous fortune”

“Yes. Who was he?”

“Number Four. No wonder he was frightened when Sonia let him know she had overheard one of his private conversations about the ‘Big Four.’ Again he has slipped through my fingers. He guessed I should get on the right track in the end, so he sent off the honest Ivan on a tortuous wild goose chase, chloroformed the girl, and got out, having by now doubtless realised most of the securities left by Madame Gospoja.”

“But—but who tried to kill him then?”

“Nobody tried to kill him. Wilson was the intended victim all along.”