The Price of Power Part 37

"You fear that the trap into which Her Highness has fallen is a fatal one--eh?" I asked, glancing at him quickly.

"What can I reply?" he said in a low tone. "Every inquiry I can devise is in progress. All the ports are watched, and observation is kept night and day upon the house in Lower Clapton from a house opposite, which Matthews, of New Scotland Yard, has taken for the purpose. Her Highness has not been there--up to now. Markoff is in Petersburg."

The great detective--the man whose cleverness in the detection of crime was perhaps unequalled in Europe--drew a long, thoughtful face as he halted with me beneath a street-lamp.

People hurried past us, ignorant of the momentous question we were discussing.

"Where is Drury?" I asked suddenly.

"Ah! That is yet another point," answered Hartwig. "He, too, is missing--he has disappeared!"

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

AT TZARSKOIE-SELO.

Just before eleven o'clock that night, accompanied by Hartwig, I called at Richard Drury's cosy artistic flat in Albemarle Street, and in answer to my questions his valet, a tall, thin-faced young man, informed me that his master was not at home.

"I understand that you have had no news of him since last Monday?" I said. "The fact is, this gentleman is a detective, and we are endeavouring to elucidate the mystery of Mr Drury's disappearance."

The valet recognised Hartwig as having called before, and invited us into the small bachelor sitting-room, over the mantelpiece of which were many photographs of its owner's friends--the majority being of the opposite s.e.x.

"Well, sir, it's a complete mystery," the man replied. "My master slept here on Sunday night, and left for the country on Monday afternoon. He had a directors' meeting at Westminster on Tuesday, and told me that he should be back at midday. But he has never returned. That's all. They sent round from the office to know if he was in town, and of course I told them that he had not come back."

"Have there been any callers lately?" I asked. "Has a lady been here?"

"Only one lady ever calls, sir--a foreign lady named Gottorp."

"And has she been here lately?" I inquired quickly. "She called on the Friday, and they went out together to lunch at Jules's. She often calls. She's a very nice young lady, sir."

"She hasn't called since Monday?" I asked.

"No, sir. A stranger--a foreigner--called on Tuesday afternoon and inquired for Mr Drury."

"A foreigner!" I exclaimed. "Who was he? Describe him."

"Oh! he was a dark, middle-aged man, dressed in a shabby brown suit. He wanted to see Mr Drury very particularly."

Hartwig and I exchanged glances. Was the caller an agent of Secret Police.

"What did he say when you told him of your master's absence?"

"He seemed rather puzzled, and went away expressing his intention of calling again."

"He was a stranger?"

"I'd never seen him before, sir."

"And this Miss Gottorp--is your master very attached to her?"

"He wors.h.i.+ps her, as the sayin' is, sir," replied the man frankly. "She lives down at Brighton, and he spends half his time there on her account."

"You say your master left London for the country on Monday afternoon.

What was his destination?"

"Ah, I don't know. I only know he drove to Victoria, but whether he left by the South Eastern or the South Coast line is a mystery."

I had already formed a theory that Drury had travelled down to Eastbourne and had met his well-beloved outside the shop in Terminus Road. Afterwards both had disappeared! My amazement was mingled with annoyance and chagrin. Natalia had, alas! too little regard for the _convenances_. She had acted foolishly, with that recklessness which had always characterised her and had already scandalised the Imperial Family. Now it had resulted in her becoming victim of some dastardly plot, the exact nature of which was not yet apparent.

For half an hour we both questioned Drury's valet, but could learn little of further interest. Therefore we left, and strolled along Piccadilly as far as St James's Club, where, until a late hour, we sat discussing the sensational affair.

Was it an elopement, or had they both fallen victims of some cleverly-conceived trap in which we detected the sinister hand of His Excellency General Serge Markoff?

Next day I returned to Brighton and closely questioned Miss West, the maid Davey, and the puzzled Dmitri. I saw the manager of the hotel where Drury was in the habit of staying, and, discovering that Drury's friend, Doctor Ingram, lived in Gower Street, I resumed to London and that same night succeeded in running him to earth.

He was perfectly frank.

"d.i.c.k has disappeared as suddenly as if the earth has swallowed him," he declared. "I can't make it out, especially as he told me he had a most important directors' meeting last Tuesday, and that he must travel up to Greenock on Thursday to be present at the launch of a new cruiser which his firm is building for the Admiralty. He certainly would have kept those two appointments had he been free to do so."

"You knew Miss Gottorp, I believe?" I asked of the quiet-mannered, studious young man in gold-rimmed gla.s.ses.

"Quite well. d.i.c.k's man told me yesterday that the young lady has also disappeared," he said. "It is really most extraordinary. I can't make it out. d.i.c.k is not the kind of man to elope, you know. He's too straightforward and honourable. Besides, he was always made most welcome at Brunswick Square--though, between ourselves, the young lady though inexpressibly charming, was always a very great mystery to me. I went with d.i.c.k twice to her house, and on each occasion saw men, foreigners they seemed, lurking about the hall. They eyed one suspiciously, and I did not like to visit her on that account."

I pretended ignorance, but could see that he held Natalia in some suspicion. Indeed, he half hinted that for aught they knew, the pretty young lady might be some clever foreign adventuress.

At that I laughed heartily. What would he think if I spoke the truth?

Next day I put into the personal columns of several of the London newspapers an advertis.e.m.e.nt which read:

"Gottorp.--Have returned: very anxious; write club--Uncle Colin."

Then for four days I waited for a reply, visiting the club a dozen times each day, but all in vain.

I called at Chesham House one afternoon and had a chat with His Excellency the Russian Amba.s.sador. He was unaware of Her Imperial Highness's disappearance, and I did not inform him. I wanted to know what knowledge he possessed, and whether Markoff was still in Petersburg. I discovered that he knew nothing, and that at that moment the Chief of Secret Police was with the Emperor at the military manoeuvres in progress on that great plain which stretches from the town of Ivanovo across to the western bank of the broad Volga.

Hartwig was ever active, night and day, but no trace could we find of the missing couple. Drury's friends, on their part, were making inquiry in every direction, but all to no avail. The pair had entirely disappeared.

The house of the conspirators in Lower Clapton was being watched night and day, but as far as it could be observed there was little or no activity in that quarter. Danilovitch was still living there in retirement, going out only after dark, and though he was always shadowed it could not be found that he ever called at any other place than a little shop kept by a Russian cigarette-maker in Dean Street, Soho, and a small eight-roomed villa in North Finchley, where lived a compatriot named Felix Sasonoff, the London correspondent of one of the Petersburg daily newspapers.

Our warning had, it seemed, had its effect. Much as we desired to approach the mysterious head of the so-called Revolutionary Organisation--the man known as "The One," but whose ident.i.ty was veiled in mystery--we dared not do so, knowing that he was our bitterest enemy.

One morning, in despair at obtaining no trace of the missing pair, I resolved to travel to Petersburg and there make inquiry. I realised that I must inform the Emperor, even at risk of his displeasure, for, after all, I had been compelled by my journey to Siberia to relax my vigilance, though I had left the little madcap under Hartwig's protection.

What if they had actually eloped! Alas! I knew too well the light manner in which Natalia regarded the conventions of old-fas.h.i.+oned Mother Grundy. Indeed, it had often seemed her delight to commit breaches of the Imperial etiquette and to cause horror in her family.

Yet surely she would never commit such an unpardonable offence as to elope with Richard Drury!

Again, was she already dead? That was, I confess, my greatest fear, knowing well the desperate cunning of Serge Markoff, and all that her decease meant to him.