My first impression of this incident was that it boded further danger. I knew Balestier. He was a man of great resolution and if he imagined that anyone was masquerading in my name in Paris, he would think nothing of rousing both the English and Russian Embassies; or of coming on to Moscow himself to probe the thing to the bottom. He loved mysteries; was most active, energetic, and enterprising; and nothing would suit him better than to have imported into his rather purposeless life some such task as a search for me half over Europe. He was quite capable, too, of jumping to the conclusion that the man he had met had murdered and was personating me; and in a belief of the kind he was just the man to raise the hue and cry in every police office on the Continent.
What the real Alexis called "speaking English" was of course bad enough to brand him anywhere as an impostor, should he try to pass himself off as an Englishman. Balestier had no doubt listened in amazement to the strange jargon coming from lips that looked like mine; and the extraordinary likeness and "my" peculiar conduct would quite complete his perplexity.
Probably I should hear more of the matter; and this set me considering whether I could not manage in some way to communicate with Balestier and get him to help in smuggling Olga across the frontier. He would revel in the work if I could only find him.
I turned to "Tregethner's" letter therefore to find the name of the hotel, and to my infinite annoyance the fool had not mentioned it; while his intention to run away from Paris and Balestier would cause more delay. The fellow was not only a coward but an idiot as well; and I could have kicked him liberally, if my foot would only have reached from Moscow to Paris.
As it was, Balestier, with the best will in the world, would probably be blundering about and plunging me still deeper into the mud, when he not only could, but would, have given me valuable help if I could have got at him to tell him what to do.
I felt like Tantalus, when I thought of it.
CHAPTER XVII.
AN EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE.
The second complication was a much bigger matter; and it was of so strange a description and fraught with consequences of such critical importance to Olga and myself that of all my experiences of that time it deserves to be classed as the most remarkable. Like all else at that time, it came quite unsought by me, and as the direct and unavoidable consequence of the first step in my new life—the duel with Devinsky and my subsequent repute as a swordsman.