“Conducted to the frontier, and shoved over, eh? How did that happen?” I asked.
“Because I demanded justice on the murderers of my friend,” he declared vehemently. “I went to the chief of the police, and he laughed at me. There are so many murders in Petersburg, and what is one Englishman more or less? I went to the British Embassy. They said the matter was being investigated, and they emphatically snubbed me. They are so insular, so narrow-minded; they could not imagine how strong was the bond of friendship between Carson and me. He loved our Shakespeare, even as I love him.”
“You wrote to Lord Southbourne,” I interrupted bluntly. “And you sent him a portrait,—a woman’s portrait that poor Carson had been carrying about in his breast-pocket. Now why did you do that? And who is the woman?”
His answer was startling.
“I sent it to him to enable him to recognize her, and warn her if he could find her. I knew she was in London, and in danger of her life; and I knew of no one whom I could summon to her aid, as Carson would have wished, except Lord Southbourne, and I only knew him as my friend’s chief.”
“But you never said a word of all this in the note you sent to Southbourne with the photograph. I know, for he showed it me.”
“That is so; I thought it would be safer to send the letter separately; I put a mere slip in with the photograph.”
Had Southbourne received that letter? If so, why had he not mentioned it to me, I thought; but I said aloud: “Who is the woman? What is her name? What connection had she with Carson?”
“He loved her, as all good men must love her, as I myself, who have seen her but once,—so beautiful, so gracious, so devoted to her country, to the true cause of freedom,—‘a most triumphant lady’ as our Sha—”