Selpdorf was, and looked, astonished.
'I don't understand you,' he said gravely. 'Pray tell me what you mean.'
'I found Major Counsellor alone and unconscious in a single carriage that had been sent rolling down the incline on the line where the outgoing mail train could not fail to collide with it. The inference is clear. Some one wished to make an end of him—in a railway accident. But the plan was a curiously stupid one, for nothing could satisfactorily explain Major Counsellor's presence there, since it was well known to the British Legation in Révonde that he was entering, not leaving Maäsau.'
Selpdorf stood silent. Here was another ill-devised amendment born of Count Sagan's blundering brain.
'It is a very strange story,' he said at length. 'Had the train come in collision with the carriage which you assert was on the down line——'
'The troops from Kofn and the railway people at Alfau can prove that.'
'The mail might have been derailed, with no one can tell what loss of life.'
'Count Simon holds life cheap,' said Rallywood. 'No life that stands in his way can be safe. Not even the life of Mademoiselle Selpdorf!'
The Chancellor was moved for once.
'You are out of your senses!' he said sternly.