"Donnerwetter!" cried Senf. "It is quite possible. But if we have learned this much what is to have prevented Herr Hochwald from learning it also?"
"Nothing, unless----"
"Unless what, Herr Rowland?"
"Unless Herr Berghof has managed to elude him."
Senf scowled at the opposite wall. "We shall see about this. Go, Herr Rowland, you may leave this matter quite safely in my hands. I will bring Herr Berghof here and crush the truth from him with my bare hands."
Rowland laughed at the old man's enthusiasm. "Yes. But if you don't find him in Munich a wire to Shestov or Barthou might not be inadvisable."
"You think----?"
"I think nothing," said Rowland. "I'm tired of thinking. But I'm the best little guesser in Munich. And now I must be off."
Sending Liederman to Zoya Rochal and the Russischer Hof to search the yellow bag and if possible find its owner, Rowland went at once to the Haupt Bahnhof and took a train for Starnberg. He had no definite plan. But what he had already seen of George Senf's influence and following gave him new courage. If Tanya were still at the villa to which she had been taken, he would find some way to reach her.
In the train many plans came into his mind. He now knew that the man he was to meet here and if necessary others who did his bidding would be absolutely at his orders, and the sense of the power that he possessed made him bold. It might be difficult to find the villa to which Tanya had been taken, for Starnberg was a town of several thousand inhabitants. But the villas, he had been told, were strung along the wooded slopes of the lake, each in its spacious grounds, and Gustav Benz would know the names and occupants of all the regular summer residents. It would perhaps not be difficult, once he found where Tanya was, to approach the place with five or six men and accomplish by force what might be difficult alone. But there was a strong argument against a fight, which might bring in the police and end in publicity if not disaster. The subtler plan appealed to him more. Hochwald could hardly suspect the good fortune that had enabled Rowland to discover the whereabouts of the prisoner, and if not aroused before Rowland's plans matured, would probably permit some carelessness of Tanya's jailers which would open the door to her escape. Rowland meant to move slowly until he was sure of his opportunity, then acting quickly with such means as presented.