Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/291

Rh not afflicted when on board the Lola in Leghorn harbour only a few months ago. Perhaps you recollect the narrow escape the yacht had on the Meloria sands?"

His eyes met mine, and I saw by his drawn face and narrow brows that my words were causing him the utmost consternation. My object was to make him believe that I knew more than I really did — to hold him in fear, in fact.

"Perhaps the man whom some know as Hornby, or Woodroffe, could tell an interesting story," I went on. "He will, no doubt, when he meets Elma Heath, and finds the terrible affliction of which she has been the victim."

His thin bony countenance was bloodless, his mouth twitched and his grey brows contracted quickly.

"I haven't the least idea what you mean, my dear sir," he stammered. "All that you say is entirely enigmatical to me. What have I to do with this mad Englishwoman's affairs?"

"Send out this man," I said, pointing to the detective Malkoff who had appeared from behind the panelling of the audience-chamber. "Send him out, and I will tell you."

But the representative of the Czar, always as much in dread of assassination as his imperial master, refused. I saw that what I had said had upset him, and that he was not at all clear as to how much or how little of the true facts I knew.

The connection between the little miniature cross of the Order of St. Anne and that red and yellow