"If they'll only forget the verboten signs," said Rowland absently--for he was thinking of Tanya.
"I beg pardon," asked Senf politely.
"I was thinking of another matter. How shall you succeed against Hochwald while he holds your most important witness? They will believe that Fräulein Korasov has taken this money unless she is there to accuse her jailer. I must find her, Herr Senf. And you must help me--before tonight."
"Ah," said Senf with a sudden access of interest, and told Rowland of a report that had come to him a short while before. The cabman who had driven the Fräulein and Herr Hochwald away from the Bayrischer Hof had with some difficulty been found. He had driven them to the garage of the Bureau of State Railroads and the pair had departed in an automobile. The official at the garage, evidently acting under instructions, refused to talk, but Senf's agent had been lucky, for a mechanician in the garage was a political follower of Max Liederman's and a member of the Order of Nemi, and had heard quite accidentally that the automobile had gone to a villa upon the banks of the Lake of Starnberg.
Rowland's eyes kindled. It was high time that fortune aided him. Starnberg he found was less than twenty miles away and could be reached by railroad in three-quarters of an hour. He sent for and questioned the man who had brought the information, but could elicit nothing more, for the mechanician had told all that he knew and there was no way of finding the precise location of the villa without arousing the suspicion of the official and this might be fatal to any plans to effect a search.
When the man had gone, Rowland looked at the clock on the mantel. It was four o'clock.
"Herr Senf," he said with a smile, "you have done wonders. I could not have asked more of you. I must move now in search of the Fräulein and move quickly. I'm going to Starnberg at once."
"You! But, Herr Rowland--the committee! We meet tonight. I had counted upon you to speak to them----"
"I shall try to come back in time--I shall try," he muttered, with a wave of his hand. "But you see how it is--without her----"
"We must do what we can."