“No. I’ve no doubt the Russian Secret Police know well enough who she is; but they don’t give anything away,—even to me.”
“They sent you that promptly enough,” I suggested, indicating the photograph with a fresh cigarette which I took up as I resumed my seat. I had managed to regain my composure, and have no doubt that Southbourne considered my late agitation was merely the outcome of my natural horror and astonishment at the news of poor Carson’s tragic fate. And now I meant to ascertain all he knew or suspected about the affair, without revealing my personal interest in it.
“Not they! It came from Von Eckhardt. It was he who found poor Carson; and he took possession of that”—he jerked his head towards the desk—“before the police came on the scene, and got it through.”
I knew what that meant,—that the thing had not been posted in Russia, but smuggled across the frontier.
I had met Von Eckhardt, who was on the staff of an important German newspaper, and knew that he and Carson were old friends. They shared rooms at St. Petersburg.
“Now why should Von Eckhardt run such a risk?” I asked.
“Can’t say; wish I could.”
“Where was he when poor Carson was done for?”
“At Wilna, he says; he’d been away for a week.”