Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/280

262 after a wait of six hours, I resumed my slow journey to Helsingfors. I put up at Kamp's, an elegant hotel on the long esplanade overlooking the port, and found the town, with its handsome streets and spacious squares, to be a much finer place than I had believed.

When I inquired of the French director of my hotel for the residence of His Excellency the Governor-General, he regarded me with some surprise, saying —

"The Baron lives up at the Palace, m'sieur — that great building opposite the Salutong. The driver of your drosky will point it out to you."

"Is His Excellency in Helsingfors at the present moment?" I asked.

"The Baron never leaves the Palace, m'sieur," responded the man. "This is a strange country, you know," he added, with a grin. "It is said that His Excellency is in hourly fear of assassination."

"Perhaps not without cause," I remarked in a low voice, at which he elevated his shoulders and smiled.

At noon I descended from a drosky before a long grey, massive building, over the big doorway of which was a large escutcheon bearing the Russian arms emblazoned in gold, and on entering where a sentry stood on either side, a colossal concierge in livery of bright blue and gold came forward to meet me, asking in Russian —

"Whom do you wish to see?"

"His Excellency the Governor-General."