“Queer thing that we should have come straight from Shishman Pelenko to his ancestral halls,” one man had said.
“Would it be well to call? The place looks inhabited.”
“I think not. We know that Shishman isn’t there, and though he’s a good sort, his elder brother is a queer lot, I believe.”
Helene dropped her paint-box, and running down the stairs, presented herself suddenly before the astonished tourists.
“I must ask you to excuse me for disturbing you,” she said, with the little air of dignity which sat so oddly and yet so well on her, “but I think I heard you mention the name of Prince Shishman Pelenko? He is a kind of relation of ours—at least, he is the cousin of a cousin—and his movements have—have puzzled us a little of late.” Was this untrue? she wondered uncomfortably.
“He is an erratic fellow,” said the elder of the two Englishmen—they had both risen politely when she addressed them, “but I am glad to be able to assure you that he was all right ten days ago, Fräulein. We have been mountaineering with him in the Caucasus for more than two months, and though he has had several hairbreadth escapes, he’s as fit as he can be.”
“We heard a rumour—about a duel,” hazarded Helene.
“He has had no opportunity of fighting a duel for three months at least, madame”—the speaker had caught sight of the wedding-ring on Helene’s finger. “Indeed, I know, for he told me himself, that his last duel happened quite three years ago.”
“Thank you. You have relieved my mind very much,” said Helene simply, but she returned into the house with slow, dragging steps. Was her mind relieved, or was it oppressed with a new and vague anxiety? Prince Shishman Pelenko had never been in the neighbourhood at all; his duel, his remorse, his flight from society, were all alike inventions of the Scythian Chancellor’s fertile brain. But if he had not been occupying the Pelenko mansion, then who was the recluse there, who never walked beyond the garden, whom no one in Drinitza had seen? Conviction forced itself upon Helene. The Princess of Dardania’s apparently purposeless display of Prince Valerian’s letter, the visit and the glib falsehoods of Prince Soudaroff, the strange hints of Tania Garanine—all pointed to one fact and one alone. Cyril was imprisoned down there in the Pelenko mansion, and Helene could take no steps to rescue him for a whole day. The idea was intolerable. She must at any rate try to find out whether she was right—and in a moment she saw how this might be done. Only once had she and Usk approached the great house closely in their walks, and then they had noticed a corner of the garden wall where a tree, growing against the masonry, had forced the lower courses out of position, and dislodged the upper stones. Usk had remarked that it was a standing invitation to burglars, and now she would play burglar.
Her face was flushed with excitement when she entered her room again, and she gathered her paint-brushes together with shaking hands. She could think of nothing but her scheme, and did not at first perceive that Hannele was grumbling still.