Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/204

 СНАРТЕR XIX

I SHOW MY HAND

ON my return to London next day I made inquiry at the Admiralty and learned that the battleship Bulwark was lying at Palermo, therefore I telegraphed to Jack Durnford, and late the same night received his reply at the Cecil: —

"Due in London twentieth. Dine with me at club that evening — JACK."

The twentieth! That meant nearly a month of inactivity. In that time I could cross to Abo, make inquiries there, and ascertain, perhaps, if Elma Heath was actually dead as Chater had declared.

Two facts struck me as remarkable. Baron Oberg was said to be Polish, while the dark-bearded proprietor of the restaurant in Westbourne Grove was also of the same nationality. Then I recollected that pretty little enamelled cross that Mackenzie had found in Rannoch Wood, and it suddenly occurred to me that it might possibly be the miniature of one of the European orders of chivalry. In the club library at midnight I found a copy of Cappelletti's Storia degli Ordini Cavallereschi, the standard work on the subject, and on searching the