"I would advise you to be careful, Ivor, in your own interests; it is best to say less than you know, still less than you suspect. To me you may speak freely, indeed, I desire you to do so; but beyond these walls, have a care. What further conclusions do you draw from your elaborate premises?"
Ivor, with a quick flush at the suggestion of sarcasm in Patouchki's voice, replied quietly:
"But one, and to you, chief, my deductions may seem both absurd and impossible. You will remember the circumstances of the murder, and you will, I am sure, concur with me, when I assert that to plan and accomplish such a crime could not have been the sole unaided work of a woman. There must have been a bolder and surer brain behind, one who had sufficient reason to make the perpetration of the murder serve as a double revenge. Very well then, granting such was the case, who would be better fitted or more competent to assist the accomplice in crime in her flight, than he who had helped her to her revenge? Self-preservation would render this shielding power compulsory, where she was concerned; for, once she fell into the hands of the Chancellerie, not her life only, but his, would be the forfeit. I have no doubt, chief, that he who helped Adèle Lallovich across our frontier, has conveyed her back again, and—for a reason."
Tolskoi, as he finished, walked slowly across the room and back again, halting beside Patouchki. The latter looked up at him with a strange drawn expression upon his face. There was complete silence for a few moments; when the chief spoke it was in a very different voice to his usual harsh tones.
"And you would suspect——"
"I suspect no one, chief," answered the young man, his blue eyes flashing coldly. "I would only suggest that it is a strange coincidence at least, that shortly after Count Mellikoff's arrival in America, Adèle Lallovich should reappear in Petersburg."
He said no more, but turning abruptly, walked back to his desk.
Patouchki sat immovable for a long time. Ivor's suggestion had fallen upon him with almost crushing certainty, while mingled with the sense of humiliation and irritation at being outwitted, was also the feeling of pain and sorrow that he, who had thus outwitted him, should be the one in whom he had most implicitly trusted.
Like Olga Naundorff, there appeared to him no room for doubt. Ivor's very appearance, his boyish insouciance and frank bearing, were but additional witnesses to that other's treachery. And yet, and yet, could it be true? Should he not do well to wait just a little longer before condemning the absent? Could he but find the woman, could he but put his hand upon her! Were she really in Petersburg now, what greater evidence of perfidy could he desire, with those damning proofs in the shape of recent despatches and cables lying now on his desk? He turned at last, and spoke with apparent effort.
"Tolskoi, your warning is understood. Find me the woman, here in Petersburg, and I shall then know how to act."