“How do you know all this?”
“Carson told me before I left for Wilna. He meant to warn her. They guessed that, and they condemned, murdered him!”
He began pacing up and down the room, muttering to himself; and I sat trying to piece out the matter in my own mind.
“Have you heard anything of a man called Cassavetti; though I believe his name was Selinski?” I asked at length.
Von Eckhardt turned to me open-mouthed.
“Selinski? He is himself one of the Five; he is in London, has been there for months; and it is he who is to bring her before the tribunal, by force or guile.”
“He is dead, murdered; stabbed to the heart in his own room, even as Carson was, four days ago.”
He sat down plump on the nearest chair.
“Dead! That, at least, is one of her enemies disposed of! That is good news, splendid news, Herr Wynn. Why did you not tell me that before? ‘To a gracious message an host of tongues bestow,’ as our Shakespeare says. How is it you know so much? Do you also know where she is? I was told she would be here, three days since; that is why I have waited. And she has not come! She is still in England?”
“No, she left on Sunday morning. I do not know where she is, but she has been seen at Ostend with—the Russian Grand Duke Loris.”