“Oh, nonsense, Nell! He’s much too wily for that.”
“I don’t care. I don’t know how it is, but I know that he knows.”
“If it was certain, it would be maddening,” cried Usk; “for you might as well tell me that the General of the Jesuits knows. We are just as likely to get it out of him. But we’ll tell Aunt Ernestine what you think when we get back to Novigrad. It may help to decide her plans.”
“Prince Pelenko is not at home, after all,” said Helene to the old landlord when they returned to the hotel. “It is his brother, Prince Shishman.”
“So the noble Scythian gentleman told me, gracious one. I did not see the Prince come home; I only saw smoke coming from the chimneys, and the Dardanian servants hanging about, and I knew that one of the family must be at the house. I guessed that there were creditors waiting to make themselves troublesome as soon as his Highness arrived in Europe, as has happened before, and that he had therefore returned.”
As Usk had anticipated, the chance meeting with Prince Soudaroff decided Queen Ernestine to make an immediate appeal to the Emperor of Scythia, who was far more likely to listen to her, now that the influence of his terrible Chancellor was temporarily removed. At the moment he was paying his annual visit to his relations at Kaufenhafen, the capital of Cimbria, and the Queen made up her mind to follow him thither, trusting to the kind offices of their common cousins to secure her an interview. It was a relief to Lord Caerleon that his sister-in-law should be willing to take this long journey, for the whole of the district round Klotsch had now been scoured, without revealing the faintest trace of the missing men, or anything that could throw light upon their fate, and he feared that her brain would give way under the continued anxiety. In view of this personal appeal she became almost hopeful, for she and her helpers were now beginning to feel convinced that Count Mortimer and his secretary had been kidnapped either by Scythia or by persons in Scythian employ, and conveyed in some mysterious way into Scythian territory, to be there imprisoned.
“I will go on my knees to the Emperor to release him!” she said. “I will promise anything in his name—anything, even that we return at once to Sitt Zeynab and never leave it again. Cyril will keep the promises I make for him—he may hate me for making them, but I can bear that, if only he is restored to me safely.”
The Chevalier Goldberg, whom she had at last consented to receive, and even, on Lord Caerleon’s advice, to leave in charge of affairs at Novigrad, was equally ready to make sacrifices on Cyril’s behalf. If it was the plot to place Cyril on the throne of Palestine that had led to his disappearance, the plot should come to an end and the plotters be disbanded the moment he was released, and the heads of the great Jewish syndicate called the United Nation would pledge themselves that he should never again be brought forward as a candidate, and would enforce the same pledge on their poorer brethren the Children of Zion. Besides these concessions, the importance of which was, to the initiated, rather apparent than real, the Chevalier was prepared to give other aid, but the nature of this he did not mention to the Queen, although Lord Caerleon understood that the journey would be as easy as the financier’s influence could make it. At every stopping-place an agent of the Chevalier’s was at hand, to see whether anything was needed, and at Kaufenhafen his representative had carte blanche to take any measures advisable for furthering the interview. These included the discreet distribution of presents among various high functionaries of the Scythian Court, and the expense was likely to be considerable.
Usk and Helene drove into Novigrad to see the Queen and Lord Caerleon start on their journey, and returned rather dolefully to Drinitza. They had never anticipated anything like this resultless and hopeless waiting, this wall of silence which seemed to close them round. Even a rumour, though it might be proved baseless, would have been some comfort; but no one came forward with false clues, as generally happens in more thickly populated countries. The disappearance was complete.
“Look here,” said Usk, rousing himself, as they sat silent on the terrace over their after-dinner coffee, “we’re getting into the blues, Nell, and I won’t have it. I shall wake you up jolly early to-morrow morning, as soon as ever I come back from the river, and you shall have a good stiff driving-lesson before breakfast. Give you something else to think about.”