“Well?” demanded Mme. Ladoguin, her eyes glowing sombrely.
“The idea came to me in a flash, but it was too improbable to accept without investigation. I went at once to the station, and by great good fortune succeeded in finding the guard of the train that was wrecked near Przlepka. Otherwise I might have had to wait two or three days. He recollected the party perfectly, and described them—the brother an ordinary, impassive Englishman, one sister vivacious in the wooden English way, but the other totally different. He said himself that he would have guessed her to be a Scythian, as also the aunt who was killed in the accident. With another happy flash, I asked him if he had happened to visit the aunt’s grave at Przlepka. He had done so, and the name upon the stone was Evdotia Vladimirovna. That was the Christian name of Madame Lyofsky, the lady-in-waiting who vanished with the Princess.”
“Excellent! Well done! Continue, pray!” cried Mme. Ladoguin, clapping her hands softly.
“I could get no more from the man, for he had, of course, only been able to observe the Smiths from Tatarjé to Przlepka. To obtain further information, I must go myself to Tatarjé and question the car-attendant on the Orient Express, who must have plenty to tell. But at present, what is your view of the case, my dear Chariclea?”
“There can only be one view,” she responded quickly. “The Princess fell in with these Smiths in Paris, and either by bribery or entreaty, induced them to adopt Mme. Lyofsky and herself as members of their party, flattering herself that she would thus escape discovery.”
“So I should have thought but for something else that I learned to-day. The man Smith and his sister are in reality no more Smith than the Princess is. Their true name is Teffany.”
“Well?” asked the Consul-General curiously.
“Teffany—which is Theophanis,” said M. Mitsopoulo. His sister sprang up from her cushions.
“What! Nicetas, you don’t mean——”
“I mean that Panagiotis has succeeded, where his predecessors failed, in unearthing or manufacturing an English representative of the senior male line of the descendants of John Theophanis.”